Blindsided
by cHiMer
Summary: It's the year 2084. A new alien incursion is about to begin. Once again, X-COM takes the burden of fighting this threat, while the utopia they've sworn to protect turns into a twisted reflection of the coming apocalypse.
1. Glimpse of the Future

Special thanks to Cetacean for beta reading it. Now it all actually makes sense!

Note that this is not a one-shot, but it'll definetely take me ages to update.

**Chapter 1: Glimpse of the Future**

**February 27th, 2084**

With a flash of light, the silver Transtellar space liner disengaged its FTL drive. Switching back to standard propulsion, it appeared right on the edge of Sol system.

Space travel did not take tedious amounts of time like in the 50's, when a two-way trip between Mars and Earth would take almost a year.

The liner's engines effortlessly propelled it across the system, carefully fitting the enormous ship into the primary space routes.

Days went by as the liner made its way to the lush green-and-blue world that could be barely recognized as Mars now – it was the new homeworld of humanity. Massive terraforming efforts turned the lifeless red rock into a habitable world in but a few decades, and not a moment too soon.

However, the liner didn't land, stopping instead at one of the orbital docks to offload part of its passengers and cargo, before leaving the bustling lanes to proceed deeper into the system.

Again, days went by as the space liner proceeded to its destination. Instead of hundreds of freighters and space liners, only an occasional Marsec Valkyrie interceptor could be encountered on this route.

Still, the liner's destination was not forgotten nor abandoned. It was Earth.

A mention of that name could make one both sorrowful and proud. In but a century, the birthplace of mankind was reduced to a toxic, polluted world – almost incapable of sustaining life.

The alien invasions that took place in 1999 and 2040 supplied humanity with technology it needed to leave the overpopulated, depleted Earth and reach for the stars – but it came at a terrible price. The destruction of the alien colony ship in 2040 was a pyrrhic victory, releasing incredible amount of toxins and radioactive materials into the atmosphere. Within a few years, the entire American continent became almost uninhabitable. Within a decade – the whole Earth was polluted.

Still, man was not going to give up his hard-earned right to live that easily. Massive interstellar colonization efforts evacuated most of the doomed planet's population, spreading it across the Solar system and the Frontier star cluster.

With humanity's future secured and the alien threat defeated for the third time in 2067, the reclaiming of Earth once again came into the question.

The solution was a costly, but solid long-term investment into a network of walled, self-contained cities – Megalopolises. Each of these would be equipped with the finest technology known to man in order to ensure complete self-sufficiency. Massive atmospheric regulators, radiation shields, hydro-farms and highly efficient recycling facilities would safeguard the inhabitants of such a city from every threat their world had in store for them – and in time, the cities would restore Earth's atmosphere and ozone layer.

The first of these Megalopolises, built on the ruins of Toronto and named Mega-Primus quickly silenced the few skeptics the project had. In but a year after its construction was completed, the city turned into a powerful industrial powerhouse, producing high-quality goods in exchange for a steady supply of resources.

Of course, the city was with its share of problems. After the selected test population of one million moved in and results started to show, a lot of people wanted to make their way to the city… and a lot more wanted to capitalize on it.

And so, the abandoned slums around the city came to life as they became populated by gangsters, hoodlums, rejected mutants and outlawed androids…

But soon these would become the least of Mega-Primus' worries.

* * *

**Monday, 6th March, 2084 - 18:56**

The liner slowed down as it approached the shadowed side of Earth, with the lights of Mega-Primus being but a dot on the darkened continent.

Inside its passenger cabins were city's residents returning from vacations, businessmen on trips, government couriers from Mars, noisy tourists – a typical bunch.

But the strangest group was currently in cabin B25, sitting around a small table that was looked ready to be crushed by the weight of paper on it.

"Our finest", "Best of today's technology", "Every precaution made to handle this quietly…What a bunch of bullshit!"

Gaston Gautier shuddered at hearing one of his new commander's outbursts again.

"Will there EVER be at least one damn X-COM operation where I'm not given a couple of green rookies with peashooters and told to go counter the alien threat?!"

"Sir, for the last time, all of our operatives are currently tied down in the Frontier." The impassive, young black-haired woman sitting next to Gaston answered.

The person she was referring to - an old, battle-scarred, mustached man was still fuming. Section Commander Armand Buchard was known and feared for his fiery temper, but also respected and revered for being one of the few X-COM operatives that survived the last phase of the Second Alien War.

Gaston mused quietly about the almost-legendary story of Buchard's escape from the submerged colony ship of T'leth, his squad's crippled submarine barely getting far away to survive the blast from the self-destructing city. He was also the only survivor – the rest either fell to the aliens, or succumbed to radiation poisoning and wounds a few hours later. Buchard still bore the cross-shaped scar across his face, a reminder of a near-fatal encounter with a Deep One.

And right now Gaston, a twenty-year old rookie recently recruited into Extraterrestrial Combat Unit - the organization responsible for the all three victories against the alien threat - was sitting at the same table with a living legend. And listening to his seemingly endless rant.

Commander Buchard had his reasons to be angry, however. Reports of new Alien activity in Mega-Primus were alarming. It seemed that this time the invaders were a different species altogether, with advanced technology once again beyond man's reach. Not to mention that their motives were completely unclear.

To make matters worse, X-COM activity in Mega-Primus was mostly observational. A base with bare necessities was completed under one of government-owned warehouses and staffed with a skeleton crew, but that was it. Supreme Commander Steinbach had to pull a lot of strings to get some combat vehicles and weaponry for the base, but the results of his efforts were already described as unsatisfactory by Buchard – described using a rich collection of most insulting profanity in existence.

Buchard finally sat back, exhaled, and leaned towards the files on the table again.

"Sorry about that outburst, people."

"No offense taken, sir." Andrea Jonlan, Buchard's second-in-command, was his direct opposite, always keeping a cool head. That's why the two always made a great team.

"Alright now. Shuji, do you have anything to tell us about those… pyramids? At least that's what they look like…"

The question was directed at the fourth and final person in the room, a short, thin Japanese man in his thirties that looked like the very essence of a science geek. Regardless of his appearance, however, Shuji Iwahara was a brilliant scientist who quickly made a name for himself in the Galactic Science Corps.

"Strange objects indeed. I've contacted the research crew on our new base already. Their conclusion is that these are either teleporters or dimensional gates."

"Have they tried investigating it?"

"Yes, they did. The gates are apparently composed of antimatter, and everything that comes in contact with it – save for air – explodes in a rather violent fashion."

"Damn it. Looks like we'll have to salvage us some UFOs to figure out how they pass through the gate. Gaston, did you find anything on alien sightings in the city?"

"Umm… yes sir. Megapol, Marsec and our own agents sent us reports of several alien craft appearing every few days from the gate and passing over the city."

"And?"

"And… nothing, sir. They don't land or take any offensive action… unless provoked."

"Unless provoked?"

"Yes… apparently, an unidentified Diablo hovercar attacked one of the UFOs when it was passing over their turf. It was destroyed in a few shots by a strange energy weapon. After that, the UFO proceeded on its normal route and eventually left through the gate."

"It won't get so lucky next time…" Buchard sneered to himself, rubbing his palms in anticipation.

"There's also another problem…" Andrea frowned while reading another file.

"Now what?"

"The Cult of Sirius. They're making a lot of fuss over this, and unfortunately aliens are only helping them by not being aggressive."

Buchard looked out into the window, thinking for a few seconds. "This is a problem indeed. They're no longer as powerful as they were a few decades ago, but who knows what these psychos are up to… no matter. If they get in the way, we'll find a way to persuade them to leave us alone."

"Knowing your methods, I think most of them won't survive the message, sir." Andrea replied, and Gaston let out a quick laugh.

"What are you laughing about, rookie? You're going to be one of our chief persuaders." Buchard said with a hint of a smile.

"I'll do my best, sir."

"Sure you will… I'll make sure you get a missile launcher to convey our point clearly."

This time everyone laughed. The commanding trio had a sort of pity for the poor rookie, who was going to be one of X-COM's field agents on the spot - a job with not much to say about life expectancy.

"Alright, people, the liner arrives tomorrow at 5 AM, so everyone off to sleep. I want you all ready for disembark at four thirty. Especially you, Gautier."

The X-COM agents went to their respective rooms for a last night of undisturbed sleep they'd have for a long, long while…


	2. The City of Tomorrow

Note: I've decided to replace "Rookie", "Squaddie" and "Squad Leader" with more formal military-styled "Private" and "Corporal". Some equipment is also getting a facelift because - let's face it - it looked downright ridiculous. Stupid 50's styling. For example, the red parts of Megapol armor are now black, like on the soldiers on the main menu screen in US version of Apocalypse.

Still, I'll try to stick to canon as much as possible. Vehicles are still going to be red, and X-COM will be stuck in a warehouse with a couple of peashooters.

Also, special thanks to Apocalypse's random name generator.

* * *

**Chapter 2: The City of Tomorrow**

**Tuesday, 7th March, 2084 – 4:50**

Gaston was already back in cabin B25, his bag at his feet. He finished his breakfast long before the others – since it was the first time in his life he'd been on Earth, he didn't want to miss even a moment of it.

So, in lieu of having anything better to do, he sat glued to window. Fortunately, this day was cloudless, and Gaston could already make out some of the landscape.

"_Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We're currently approaching Transtellar Spacelines space port, and should land in ten minutes. Please remember to keep your seatbelts fastened at all times, as artificial gravity is now off and thus the ship is subject to inertia and winds."_

The sight in the window was quite grim, actually. Lake Ontario, like all other Great Lakes, was rendered completely lifeless over the past four decades, its blackened waters completely still.

But in the distance, Gaston could already see the liner's destination. The massive walls of the city were the first thing he saw, followed by the giant silhouette of the space port.

As the ship got closer, he also noticed the ruins and slums outside the city limits, although most of them had been reprocessed for raw materials back when the city was under construction.

The inside of the city limits was a sharp contrast to the devastation outside. Highways, parks, skyscrapers… pretty much everything one would expect to see in a large city, but on Mars such cities didn't stand out at all. Mega-Primus looked like a jewel in the gray mist of the remains of the old world.

Finally, the ship stopped right above one of space port's launch tubes. As far as Gaston remembered, the space port was built on the site of the old Toronto island airport. Toronto harbor was also separated from the lake and turned into a water reservoir for the city, as well as a site of recreational and scientific activities. One of the more ambitious projects by City Senate reintroduced animal and plant life into the harbor, and future aims included cleanup and re-settlement of the entire lake.

Finally, the liner descended into the underground level of the port and stopped.

"_On behalf of our President and Senators, we would like to welcome you to Mega-Primus._"

"Alright people," Buchard rose from his chair "Let's go. There should be someone from Megapol waiting for us at check-out."

* * *

Customs, check-out… none of it remained in Gaston's mind by the time he and the others approached a middle-aged, well-muscled man in a business suit with a Megapol badge on it.

Buchard was genuinely surprised as he shook hands with the man.

"Klaus, is that you? What are you doing here? Hmm." Buchard turned to his entourage. "Allow me to introduce Klaus Gunkel, former X-COM fighter pilot in the Frontier. Now," He turned back to smiling Klaus "What _are_ you doing here?"

"I'm the chief of Megapol, Armand." He chuckled as Buchard's jaw dropped. "Alright, we don't have much time. Would you mind introducing the rest of your team?"

"Oh, of course. This is Andrea Jonlan, my second-in-command, Shuji Iwahara – the new director of our R&D department, and Gaston Gautier – our newest field agent."

"Nice to meet all of you. Now, let's go. I've arranged for an Airtrans to take us to the Senate."

"The Senate?" Buchard frowned. "What's this about?"

"Sorry, man. Government orders, they want to see you all in person, give you a brainwashing message, try to use you in their petty power plays... You know, stuff like that."

As they were walking to the exit, Gaston carefully approached his commander.

"Um… sir, may I ask a question?"

"Go ahead, private."

"Do I need to go to the Senate as well? I mean, I'm not even an officer…"

"You got any other suggestions?" Buchard cut him off.

"Um, no s…"

"Thought so. Enjoy the trip, rookie. Think of at as sight-seeing. Memorize the layout. Hell, you're even going to meet the Senators themselves, something one of those Extropian or Technocrat monkeys would worship you for as if you were a god." Buchard stopped speaking as he climbed into Superdynamics ECA-04 Air Transport, always shortened to simple Airtrans.

The green-colored, sleek transport was popular because of its low-consumption Elerium-powered engine and modular construction that allowed it to be refitted to transport every material in existence. This one was equipped with a few passenger modules, and Buchard grunted in approval as he settled into one of the comfortable chairs.

"Alright." Klaus sat down next to the pilot. "Samusenko, take us to the Senate."

"Yes sir." The transport lifted off and proceeded on its destination, maintaining an altitude of about 150 meters above the busy road.

Gaston was still surprised at seeing an actual pilot in the normally AI-controlled vehicle.

Noticing his bewilderment, Andrea leaned closer to him and whispered "City regulations. Something about necessity of interpersonal contact in a society dominated by automation."

Klaus overheard them and frowned. "These regulations will be the death of us someday. Look at that hovercar for example." He pointed out of the window to the police hovercar escorting them.

Gaston looked closely and was quite surprised at seeing Megapol use hovercars instead of more conventional aerial vehicles. To make things even stranger, the car was styled in the popular 1950's fashion, although it was noticeably sleeker and modern-looking than its road-going version.

"Yup, that styling is a result of another ridiculous regulation – this time about pleasurable design of public vehicles."

"Ouch." Buchard nodded. "And I was wondering why you guys don't use these new Swordfish helijets, like the police on Mars does."

"That Barracuda-based craft? Oh aye, we wanted a license to manufacture those for a long time. Unfortunately the government is unrelenting. They prefer looks over function; no wonder crime is on the rise."

After a few seconds of silence, Klaus spoke up again. "Fortunately for us, Marsec has been hit by that regulation too. They had to develop Phoenix hovercars just to sell mid-range combat craft on Earth."

"You guys don't like each other much, do you?"

"Of course we don't, it's a damn armaments industry competition. Megapol isn't just a police force, we're also competing with Marsec on the market. And unfortunately they have an upper hand here."

"No offense, mate, but you two are in way too different leagues. They aren't called Mars Security for no reason. They watch over entire planets."

Gaston whistled in amazement as the transport flew past the CN Tower, one of the few remaining landmarks of the old Toronto – now carefully repaired, cleaned and upgraded. It also housed Megavision Three, the largest Sensovision broadcast station in the city. Although Sensovision craze has died a bit by now and people began to realize that experiencing state of the actor didn't replace the need for more traditional media like radio, television and newspapers (not that it mattered much since Sensovision corporation worked with said traditional media as well), the station remained an important element of city information grid. And so, Megavision Three wasn't going anywhere, despite the protests from Extropians who viewed this as a desecration of the famous landmark.

"Nice job on the tower you did here." Buchard commented. "You guys doing anything else?"

"No, restoration projects are shelved right now. At the moment we're busy with rebuilding the IML station."

"International Maglev? What for?"

"The new Megalopolis in New York is going to be settled next month, and General Metro offered to restore the old IML line since it'll be cheaper than Transtellar liners. Not to mention that we already don't like Transtellar holding monopoly over the city transport."

"Still, it's hundreds of miles of tunnels to repair. Most of it in the wastelands."

"Nah. It was built using plasteel stockpiles from the First War, remember? They could stand without repairs for hundreds of years. And since it's all hermetically sealed, we just have to replace the stations themselves, do some upgrades, and voila. Oh and by the way… welcome to the Senate."

The light-brown building was truly magnificent. Built in the same retro-futuristic style as the rest of the city, the Senate was one of the biggest structures in the city. Lavish, with extremely large windows and two curved expansions forming a crescent around the park where public speeches were given, the Senate outshined even the Congressional Plaza in New Washington on Mars. Although Technocrat party never missed a chance to poke at what they called a "ridiculous waste of time and money", the Senate building became the first and most recognizable landmark of Mega-Primus.

The transport landed in one of the launch tubes located behind the extensions, and soon the whole team was awestruck as the marvelous combination of glass, concrete, marble and even genuine wood that was the building's interior revealed itself to them.

"Right this way, people." Klaus was used to luxurious environment of the Senate, having visited it nearly every day for five years.

After about twenty minutes of walking throughout the maze of corridors and halls of the building, Gaston found himself sitting on a sofa opposite to the gold-encrusted doors of the Senate Chamber, emblazoned with the symbol of Mega-Primus' government – a variation of an "all-seeing eye" with black-and-red stripes across it.

"What are we waiting for, Klaus?" Buchard asked.

"This guy…" Klaus pointed half-heartedly at fit, healthy man running towards them.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting, gentlemen… and lady." The man quickly said as he stopped near the group. "A lot of trouble with the couriers, since the Senate suddenly uplifted the ban on heavy weapons... I'm sure you understand."

"Oh, I certainly do." Klaus rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Mr. Gunkel. Can we leave out the corporate competition here? You could've been a bit friendlier." The man looked only a few years older than Gaston, who immediately took a certain liking to his positive attitude.

"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Bernard Unger, Marsec representative here on Earth. Now, Mr. Gunkel, mind telling me why was I summoned to the Senate?"

"These fine people with me, Bernard, are from X-COM. Put two and two together and you'll figure out why the weapons ban was lifted, too."

Buchard rose from his chair and stretched his hand to the startled man. "Section Commander Armand Buchard. Nice to meet you, Mr. Unger."

"Bu-Buchard? Why, sir." Bernard shook Buchard's hand. "It's a great honor to make your acquaintance."

"Don't call me "sir". I'm not your commanding officer."

"That's out of the question, sir. Marsec doesn't forget its roots easily."

The conversation was cut off as the doors swung open and a warm, welcoming voice from seemingly nowhere said "Gentlemen, please come inside. The Senators would like to speak with you."

Contrary to what Gaston expected, the Senate chamber was not the pinnacle of luxury. It wasn't completely austere either, with a rich, obviously hand-woven red carpet and a large oval table of polished black wood, but that was it.

As he settled in one of the leather chairs, the lights slowly came on, and he finally saw all thirteen senators sitting on the opposite side of the table. Contrary to rumors he heard, the senators were wearing ordinary business suits and looked absolutely normal. A closer look revealed strange rings with square and compasses emblazoned on them. Gaston was absolutely sure he saw that symbol somewhere, but couldn't place it.

The President of Senators – an elderly, gray-haired woman in her fifties - finally spoke up. "Welcome to Mega-Primus, commander Buchard."

Buchard raised an eyebrow before answering. "Thank you… President Healey. I believe you wouldn't mind if we got straight to the point? I'd prefer to inspect my base as soon as possible."

Gaston nearly gasped. Of course! How could he forget that Mega-Primus was ruled by once the most powerful person in the world?

Former Premier-President of the North American Alliance didn't look unsatisfied with her current position, however. She fully realized that evacuation of Earth already turned the United Nations' member states into purely symbolical entities, and was one of the staunch supporters of the UN's reorganization into New World Council, the current unified Terran government.

"Indeed, Commander, I'd rather keep this short. I assume you've already read the Megapol and Marsec reports on alien activity."

"Of course."

"Well, there's something that wasn't mentioned there. These… gates were first sighted here years ago, back when the city was near completion."

"And why haven't you…"

"They were several hundred miles away from the city and were written off as hallucinations, urban legends or atmospheric phenomena. However, over the years they got closer. It appears that they shift their position every day... so over the years, they slowly approached the city."

Buchard leaned forward. "That complicates matters a lot. We might be dealing with full-fledged alien infiltration here already."

Healey sighed. "We think we already do. The social situation in the city is decaying rapidly. Statistics clearly

demonstrate increases in physical and cyberspace violence, family breakdowns, crime, ethnic

unrest and strange cult group involvement. Sociologists are baffled, people are fleeing."

"We still don't have any evidence that this situation is caused by the aliens, President. It could be that meddlesome Psyke and their cursed Psiclones for all we know." Another senator spoke up, visibly irritated.

"Psyke is in decline, senator Fujimoto. Psiclone trade is the only thing preventing them from complete collapse. They've been raided by Diablo for months." Gunkel retorted.

"Furthermore, Senator Fujimoto, you saw the yesterday's video with the rest of us." Replied another senator, visibly much younger than the others.

Gaston barely managed to remember his name. Victor Wright, one of the few of the senators that didn't belong to any of the city's political parties.

"Video?" Buchard asked with a hint of concern in his voice.

"Yes, a video." Healey pushed a button under the table, and a LCD screen descended from the ceiling, facing the visitors.

Gaston shuddered as he saw a visibly repulsive, organic-looking craft that looked nothing like conventional saucers utilized by the aliens previously encountered by X-COM. In fact, it more resembled a chocolate truffle.

"Here you see one of the two types of UFOs we've encountered so far. It was sighted yesterday at about 6 PM over Iliad Institute.

After hovering above the building for a few seconds, a large white beam of light appeared between the roof and the craft. The beam wasn't uniform, occasionally shifting as _something_ humanoid-shaped came through it several times.

Everyone sat speechless as the screen was pulled back up.

Healy continued. "The building was swept several times by Megapol SWAT team, but they didn't find anything and were recalled for safety reasons. The building itself is quarantined."

Buchard cast a suspicious glance at Gunkel, who promptly replied "I'm serious. We haven't found anything."

"In any case, Commander Buchard," Healy continued "I hope that X-COM can... deal with this problem as soon as possible. As you probably know, the construction of New York Megalopolis is nearly complete, and the next elections are due in a few months."

"What do we get?"

"Your base, contacts with Mutant Alliance and S.E.L.F., carte-blanche for any military activity in the city – in reasonable amounts, of course, and full access to the military hardware market. I believe Mr. Unger has already told you about the uplifted ban on heavy weapons?"

"Yes, he did. But not the details."

"Mr. Unger?" Healey turned to Marsec representative, who promptly spoke up.

"Yes... at the moment we're going through paperwork and delivery, so it'll be another week before the items I requested arrive from Mars. Right now we can offer you only basic selection of combat vehicles and infantry equipment, but at the beginning of the next week we'll be ready to offer you missile launchers, plasma weapons, advanced combat craft and Griffon tanks, as well as our new powered armor."

"On a side note," Wright spoke up, "Cyberweb has already informed us that they will deliver some of their more advanced targeting computers here next week."

"What about the funding?" Buchard focused on Healey again.

"A hundred and forty thousand credits right now, and one hundred thousand each week. The payment will be increased or – God forbid – decreased depending upon your performance."

"I'll be honest – this is underwhelming."

"Tax revenues have dropped and our budget is shrinking. However, as I said before, you're given a carte-blanche. It goes against my morals to allow you to access the black market, but there is no other choice. You're also authorized to mount raids on any organization in the city, but be warned that you'll have to deal with the consequences yourself. Be on alert. Megapol is stretched thin on fighting the crime syndicates, so in the meanwhile the megacorporations have stocked up on weapons. Basically, the city is a powderkeg that can explode any moment."

"Understood."

"Then this meeting is adjourned. I wish all of you best of luck in the coming months – you'll need it."

* * *

**Tuesday, 7th March, 6:49**

**Warehouse Three**

The massive antigravity lift took the arrivals into the underground level of the warehouse, which housed the X-COM base.

Gaston felt slightly uncomfortable, as he was "greeted" by the sight of several quad-barreled plasma turrets pointed at him. Behind them were small guard towers, each equipped with its own grav lift.

Despite the early hour, the base resembled a bee hive, with people running around, carrying equipment, goods or stacks of files.

There were only two people actually expecting the arrivals, both in the black field agent uniform, with a rank insignia on their collars.

The first of them, a burly, muscular man with shaved head, approached Buchard and saluted.

"Sergeant Carl Krause at your service, sir. The base is fully operational and we're currently on alert."

Buchard saluted back. "At ease, Sergeant."

"Would you like a tour of the base, sir?"

"Absolutely. But first, Private Gautier needs to be assigned to his squad here.

"Corporal Homburger?" Krause motioned the second agent to come closer.

"Yes sir?"

"Escort Private Gautier to his quarters. After he settles in, give him a tour of the armory. I want him fully equipped in an hour."

"On it, sir. Let's go, Private."

Gaston picked up his bag and followed Homburger.

"Alright, rookie. I'm Ed Homburger, commander of the First squad here, to which you've already been assigned. I've seen your statistics, and I think you'll do alright. Anyway, here's our room."

They entered a large room with rows upon rows of beds, each with a locker next to it.

"Sorry for the lack of privacy - it's because of the safety regulations. No condensed easy-to-hide-in spaces. Don't think we really need those, though. Every potential invader will get shredded twice by security stations at the entrance. Anyway, showers are over there. Your uniform is in your locker, number 4. Freshen up, then suit up and meet me outside. I'll show you the armory and the rest of your squad."

Gaston dropped his bag on the bed, took a quick shower, and finally put on his new uniform. As far as he knew, it was made of a new nanocomposite that was comfortable to wear but became rigid when under stress, making it great base for a body armor. Only the boots were unusually thin, but Gaston soon realized that it was done so that agents could easily fit into leggings of the proper body armor.

Finally, he walked out of the living quarters, where Homburger grunted in approval at his appearance.

Then he motioned Gaston to follow him. The base was quite small, and in a minute they were at the armory, situated somewhere in-between the access lifts and living quarters.

They walked up to yet another locker with a "4" on it, this one much bigger. Gaston expected some kind of lock on the door, but Homburger simply pulled the handle to open it.

"Don't worry, it opens only to registered X-COM staff. And unless it's a base invasion, "staff" means only you or higher-ranking officer."

"Anyway, to put the armor on, just stand here on this mat and put your hand here for fingerprint scan." Homburger did exactly that and soon several robotic claws extended from the locker, fixing plasteel plates of Megapol SWAT armor around Homburger's frame. Within a few seconds he was completely armored, and turned around to Gaston."

"It's also flexible enough to adapt to anybody within seconds... well, except the helm, that thing is heavy and uncomfortable for everyone." The voice came from the helmet's speakers, with Homburger's face hidden behind a strange, almost skull-like faceplate. "That's what you get for trying to combine armor, gas mask, tactical AI and radio all-in-one." Homburger stood on the mat again, and the claws removed the armor immediately.

"It's a good armor nevertheless. Provided that our new alien friends don't have portable doomsday devices, mortality rate should be several times below the previous wars." Homburger reached deeper into the locker, taking out a large assault rifle, putting it in Gaston's arms. "And this here is Marsec Model 4500 Infantry Gauss Rifle. About time Marsec started replacing that joke of a gun called Model 4000."

Gaston remembered stories of M4000, a popular but incredibly faulty weapon that was mockingly called "abiding by regulations of pleasurable design of weapons" due to its curved forms and drum-shaped magazine. He even got to wield it during basic training, and was glad that he would get to use something packing more serious firepower in combat.

"Thirty-round clip, integrated optical scope with four times magnification, and a laser sight mounted under the barrel, oh and did I mention onboard AI that cooperates with the one in your armor?" Homburger grinned as Gaston examined the rifle with genuine awe.

"Alright, rookie, you'll get to play with it later," Homburger put the rifle back in the locker. "Now, you also get two of each type of grenades, all stored on your belt, and a first aid kit - but I think you've used them during the training."

Gaston nodded. "Yes sir. Standard high-explosive grenades, stun gas and smoke, all with a selection of impact or timed detonation. I know how to use the medi-kit too."

"Good. Now, as a final element of your gear, the Megapol Stun Grapple. It's pretty much a fancy police taser. Five wired electrodes, enough shock to bring an elephant down easily."

"Did they test it on an actual elephant?"

"Of course not! There are what, a few dozen of them remaining?"

"I don't know, sir."

"No matter. Well," Homburger closed the locker, "Let's go meet your squad. They're in the lounge."

The lounge in question was dimly-lit, with a multitude of couches and TVs, a small bar stall and a few tables with computers. Right now it was mostly empty, save for the personnel that still waited for their shift to begin or whose shift just ended.

"This is the place to come to when you're off duty. Internet, billiard, cards, tele- and sensovision, radio, bar – everything to keep you busy. Mess hall is through the door over there. You sure you don't want a snack or anything?"

"No sir, I ate before landing."

"Good. Meals are served every six hours starting from midnight, but there's always something to eat there."

They came closer to one of the couches.

"Atten-SHUN!" Homburger yelled.

Both agents sitting on the said couch sprang up and saluted to the Corporal.

"Men, meet your new teammate, Gaston Gautier."

"Nice to meet you, Gaston." The attractive Asian woman shook his hand. "I'm Sata Yamanaka, squad's sniper."

"Yuri Yakubik" A bearded man in his thirties also shook Gaston's hand. "Good to have you here."

"Sata, where are the others?" Homburger asked.

"Third and fourth squads are in training rooms, second is in the mess hall and waiting for Sergeant to come back. Who's our new commander, sir?"

"Armand Buchard himself." Homburger answered, prompting a whistle of amazement from Yuri. "Yes, Yuri, my reaction was the same. Anyway, what's on the schedule today?"

"Nothing, sir. It's our day off since the gyms are busy."

"Well, I guess we can relax." Homburger settled down on the couch. "You people up for a game of pool?"

* * *

"Just as I expected." Buchard muttered to himself, while standing on the upper levels of the repair bay and looking closely at the Stormdog armored car below him.

"So, what's your verdict, sir?" Krause asked him.

"Not bad at all, Sergeant. Glad to see that the Senate's stupidity didn't carry over into the base. My only cause of concern is our... hmm... fleet. Who the hell painted it red?"

"No idea, sir. We were surprised as well, but it looks like it's just the Marsec default color scheme."

"Ah well, we'll do with it. Nobody needs camouflage in a city anyway. Andrea!"

"I'm right here, sir."

"Write down the buy order. First, a ground-launched missile array and a Metro Powergrav engine for the Stormdog.

Andrea entered the order in her PDA. "Confirmation received, funds transferred, Airtrans should be here in a few minutes."

"Next... our Wolfhound APC. Order a Metro Multipower Plus, we want this thing to be fast."

"Done."

"Now, for the aerial vehicles. Superdynamics Special, a Prophet missile array and a Lineage plasma cannon for the Valkyrie."

"Plasma cannons are still unavailable, sir."

"Damn. Use a Lancer laser as a substitute then. Now, for the hovercars. Twin Janitor missile arrays and a SD Turbo on each. Also, order all available targeting systems from Cyberweb before someone else does."

"Done and done. Any orders on infantry equipment?"

"No, we're good with what we have. Sell off everything you replace."

"Will do."

"Alright. Sergeant Krause, return to your men. Andrea, let's go to the command center."

The command center was located below all other facilities, so that potential invaders would have to go through the entire base to reach it. Assuming they made it, which was quite improbable with a total of twelve plasma turrets by the entrance, there were another two turrets guarding the door.

The room itself was quite large compared to other facilities, with operators watching the multitude of cameras installed in the city, in addition to satellite uplink – with all this surveillance equipment, command had a complete coverage of the city 24 hours a day.

Buchard settled into his chair and entered a number on the communicator. "Shuji?"

"Yes sir?"

"Do you have a bio-transport module ready?"

"Yes sir, it's been completed a few hours ago."

"Good. I need it installed on the Wolfhound."

"I'll pass this to maintenance, sir. Anything else?"

"Yes. How's the research staff?"

"Great. Fine folks, all fifteen of them. Both biochemistry and quantum physics obviously did their homework."

"What about engineering?"

"They're great too. They put that module together in just a few hours, I'm impressed."

"Good. I think we'll have some specimens ready in a few hours."

"Do you think there really are aliens in the Iliad institute, sir?" Shuji sounded concerned.

"I'm certain. Lifetree won't let us sweep it until they confirm a sighting, though. Idiots."

"I hope Gaston will be alright. Poor rookie is the only one without any experience, and is already thrown into action."

"He'll be fine, Shuji. This isn't the First War, and the kid's quite talented, too. They all will do their job well."

* * *

**Tuesday, 7th March, 9:06**

**X-COM Base One**

"So, there are four squads," Gaston asked while carefully aiming at the cue ball. "And only twelve seats in a Wolfhound?"

"Yup." Yuri answered. "One squad sits the mission out for safety reasons."

"Such as?" Gaston took a shot and frowned as the striped ball he hoped to pocket ricocheted off the railing instead.

"First and foremost, garrison duty. Even with the turrets, someone still has to defend the base." Homburger walked around the table to reach the cue ball. "And second, in case – God forbid – the main force is lost in action, someone has to survive or we're all screwed."

"There's a rotation between squads on who's sitting the next one out." Homburger aimed at the cue ball. "Since there haven't been any missions yet, Delta squad is on garrison duty since it's the fourth squad."

His shot somehow missed the ball he was aiming for, instead knocking the 8-ball into a pocket.

"Dang it. Up for another game, rookie?" Homburger asked.

Gaston didn't manage to answer as a loud alarm signal thundered throughout the base, followed by switch to emergency red lighting and Andrea's slightly worried voice.

"_Attention all personnel, scramble X-COM threat. Alien infiltration has been confirmed in the Iliad Institute. Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie squads are to report to the Wolfhound in ten minutes."_

"Well, what are you waiting for, people? Double-time to the armory!" Homburger shouted as everyone dashed off to the lockers.

Gaston had good stamina ratings during the training, so he was close behind Homburger in the race to the armory.

Remembering what Corporal told him, Gaston opened the locker, and touched the scanner pad.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds as the robotic claws put the armor plates on and around him, before lifting him off the ground slightly to attach the soles of the armored boots. The armor felt quite heavy despite built-in muscle augmentations, but not heavy enough to hinder Gaston's movements.

He opened his eyes and looked around through the transparent alloy before his eyes. The HUD flickered to life, displaying his vitals. The helmet was equipped with a compact psi-receiver, that could let anyone save for an android interact with the armor by simple thought. After switching to team's frequency, Gaston grabbed his rifle and noted the ammunition meter appear on his HUD, as well as a crosshair that showed where the laser sight was pointed at.

He looked around to see the other two squads run in and head for their lockers. Homburger was already spinning the barrels of a massive Megapol Autocannon, a six-barreled monster that could punch through anything.

Yuri to his right was holding a Marsec rifle similar to Gaston's, but in his left hand he also had a motion scanner – an incredibly useful device when it came to reconnaissance and sweeping ops. Sata crammed an energy pod into her Megapol ISI-7b Laser Sniper Rifle. Mounted on her left forearm was a strange device that took Gaston a few seconds to recognize – a Mind Bender, a weapon that amplified the telepathic potential of a human brain. Although most people could only probe someone's thoughts once in a blue moon with a Mind Bender, trained (and gifted) users could use it to knock the enemy out, induce fear and panic or even take control of someone's mind for a short while. The mutants living in the slums outside the city were often ostracized for their more potent psionic abilities, although genetically they were almost identical to normal humans.

Gaston followed his squad to dark red behemoth he instantly identified as Wolfhound APC, the most reliable troop transport in existence. He climbed in, took his seat, and tried to stop his treacherous hands from shaking.

"_Tac-link engaged."_ Buchard's voice came through the comms, and immediately three small windows appeared on Gaston's HUD. He realized that they showed the view out of the helmets of his teammates, while Buchard could watch all twelve agents from his command center. Advanced AI there would produce a 3-D projection of the battlefield, illuminating the field of vision of the battlefield, allowing Buchard to closely monitor the troops.

The elevator raised the APC to the upper level of the base. Gaston heard the warehouse gates open.

The Wolfhound's engine roared to life, and the journey began.


	3. This Is Not A Drill

Note: I have to put in actual effort even for small detail like Wolfhound's weight. I'll assume that 1 weight unit in Apocalypse equals 10 kilos - that would put it at somewhat believable 10 tons (slightly lighter than modern APCs). This logic fails when you look, for example, at Megapol hovercar, which would be placed at 4.8 tons – strange. Then again, a weight of 480 kilos would be believable, but then the Wolfhound would weigh 1 ton, which is ridiculous.

* * *

**Chapter 3: This is not a Drill**

**Tuesday, 7****th**** March, 2084 – 9:39**

**Iliad Institute **

Disturbances were rare in the strict, law-abiding environment of Mega-Primus. The criminal gangs outside were in a state of permanent war of attrition with each other and the police, and their influence could barely be felt inside the city – at least, not in the open. A colossal number of security regulations and laws further ensured the safety of its inhabitants – and as such, even a malfunctioning door in someone's apartment was something way out of the ordinary.

This time however, an entire university was quarantined by Megapol without any reasons given to the public. Lifetree Corporation, the owner of all educational facilities in the city already lodged a number of protests to the Senate, but all were promptly turned down without explanation.

So a day has passed, but the Megapol blockade wasn't going anywhere. A perceptive bystander would've noticed that the scores of policemen seemed to be deployed in a way to contain something coming _from_ the building, rather than into it.

The outside of the building saw a large number of spectators – mostly displaced students and staff, although the crowd seemed to increase in numbers by the minute.

Still, nothing else happened. The policemen refused to speak to anyone, including Lifetree representatives, while the SWAT teams kept their eyes locked on the building.

Fortunately, nobody's been able to put two and two together (the dimension gates in the sky weren't exactly inconspicuous, nor were the UFOs) and induce panic into the crowd yet.

Watching the crowd via the surveillance cameras, Buchard was trying to find some reason for this blissful ignorance, but so far he had failed.

_Well, we can see what Lifetree's dubious education methods and the Sanctuary Clinic's genetic tampering led to. The question remains, however, if this new generation is model citizens with curbed aggressive and anti-social instincts or just hopeless idiots. It can be both._

"ETA on the Wolfhound is two minutes, sir," Andrea's voice came from behind.

"Track it." Buchard turned to another screen, with camera centered on a busy highway.

_"Switching to camera eight, increasing resolution."_ The operators of the cameras were located on the second floor of the command center. Buchard didn't envy their job, as they had to monitor the entire city – a very stressing job for a dozen of men, even with the modern surveillance equipment.

In the midst of civilian cars of all shapes and colors he could easily make out the dark red behemoth carrying the X-COM agents. The driver was obviously very skilled, darting with ease between civilian cars – not the easiest thing to do when you're driving a 10-ton personnel carrier full of agents and weaponry.

_"Switching to camera… ten."_ The camera switched back to the Institute, with the Wolfhound driving down the highway ramp in the background

* * *

Gaston noticed how the steady roar of the Wolfhound's military-grade engine became quieter. The APC didn't have viewports for obvious reasons, and even the windshield in driver's compartment was interlaced by armor.

"We're at the spot. Ready up. Lots of civvies in the area. Don't talk to anyone. Don't even look at them. Our secrecy is busted, but there is no need to make it worse." Sergeant Krause instructed everyone.

Finally, the vehicle stopped and the rear door opened.

"Let's go." Krause walked outside with the rest of the agents following him.

The crowd outside went completely silent, baffled – and Gaston was glad they couldn't see his face behind the helmet.

Immediately he turned away and followed Homburger past the barricade.

"Wait, you can't just barge in here… Who the hell…" One of the police officers gasped.

Krause turned his head to the officer for a split second "X-COM. Sod off."

"Not too polite, is he…" Gaston heard Yuri's voice on the squad frequency.

"We're not here for tea and cookies, people." Homburger answered. "This city is drowning in bureaucracy, and Krause had to deal with it the most before Commander Buchard took over. No wonder he's pissed."

"_All __units, stay alert. Enter through the main entrance. This building went through renovation recently and we don't have the plans for it."_ Buchard ordered.

The main door automatics sensed approaching agents and opened without a sound, revealing a large, well-lit, three-way hallway.

"_Alright… let's see… hm, looks easy enough.__ First squad goes west, second goes north, third goes east. The door will remain open so a SWAT team will keep watch on the entrance. Go weapons hot and turn the motion scanners on."_

Yuri's scanner flickered to life.

"Get a move on. Turn the sound isolation on and move as quietly as possible. Stick close but make sure you don't kill each other. I'll take point." Homburger motioned the squad to follow him. "Gautier on my left flank, Yakubik on right. Yamanaka, watch our backs. Sensed anything yet?"

Sata was waving her Mind Bender around since they left the APC. "It's… strange. I can't exactly place it, but there's something amiss here…"

"Why am I not surprised…" Homburger sighed. He motioned towards a classroom door. "Stack up."

As quietly as it was possible while wearing a full suit of armor, the agents gathered at the sides of the door.

Then, Homburger quickly hit the open switch and darted inside as soon as the door slid open, with Gaston and Yuri following him, weapons trained at whatever danger that could be lurking inside.

Except that there was nothing save for furniture.

"Room clear." Homburger looked around one more time and walked out of the room.

Gaston looked at the tables with strange headsets on each. "What are these?"

"Psionic receivers." Sata replied. "As long as the student doesn't resist, the knowledge is just telepathically transferred to his brain."

"Doesn't resist?" Gaston took his place at Homburger's side again.

"If he does, he feels pain. I tried it once, and never resisted the flow again."

"But that's just… brainwashing." He muttered.

"Good job, Captain Obvious." Sata's tone revealed a hint of annoyance. "You're not the first one to notice, but Lifetree doesn't give a shit. They got the money."

"Cut down the chatter. We're on a mission here." Homburger grunted.

* * *

**Mission Control, X-COM Base One**

The holographic projection was constantly updating itself, adding data on building interior as the agents continued to explore.

A lot of people gathered at the projector – thankfully, it was big enough for everyone to see.

There was no talking, however. Everyone was watching the yellow holographic figures of the agents move carefully through the constantly shifting corridors.

So far, nothing had happened. The second squad was exploring the upper floors, while the first went to the basement and the third stayed behind to provide cover. Motion scanner readings were empty, and even the barely-audible chatter of the squad members died down as the tension rose.

Armand felt the sweat form on his forehead.

_This is just like forty years ago._

Memories he tried to suppress kept floating up. Inky depths, sunken ships full of dead bodies…

…And screams. Muffled screams that somehow pierced the water around, revealing the horrible last moments of Armand's friends and comrades in arms, now added to the ranks of the dead on the sea floor. The paralyzing fear that you could be the next, cut in half by a ruthless genetically-engineered monstrosity lurking in the shadows… or worse.

Still, he had pulled through. He had survived it all from day one to the end.

But now, he was fighting not for his own survival, but for survival of twelve brave young men and women who had not yet tasted the horror of being outnumbered, outgunned and outsmarted at every turn.

"_This is Alpha-One to mission control, we've found something__… strange, over."_ The voice of the first squad's commander appeared through the static.

"What is it, Corporal?" Buchard turned to the live feed monitors, looking for the one with Homburger's view.

* * *

**Iliad Institute****, 10:01 AM**

Despite being in a well-lit corridor and in company of three other armed-to-the-teeth agents, Gaston felt his hands shake again.

Something really had happened here.

"Gautier, get a damn grip of yourself. This doesn't prove anything." Homburger said.

Gaston took a deep breath, then kneeled down and examined their find closer.

"Sir… these are bullet casings from a Marsec 4000. Something has happened over here. Look at the walls. There are holes everywhere… there's been a firefight."

"_Gautier is right, Corporal. Whoever's been shooting was wildly inaccurate however, and firing on the move."_

"But there shouldn't have been anyone here…" Homburger was visibly alarmed now, the barrels of his autocannon spinning slowly.

"_Exactly. Nobody but Megapol. Even if these were the marks of some previous raid, the casings shouldn't be here. Continue the investigation, Corporal, but be on your guard. Please."_

"Yes sir. Squad, on your guard. If anything appears, shoot it first, ask questions later."

Gaston lifted his rifle and turned on the target acquisition module on his rifle. The infrared laser was hopefully invisible to whatever threat there was, and the module's compatibility with the armor meant that Gaston didn't even have to aim properly – just to make sure the target was in the crosshairs on the HUD.

The agents proceeded deeper down the corridor, where an even more disturbing find presented itself.

"My god… what in damn hell is this thing?" Sata exclaimed at the sight of the corpse.

Homburger prodded the thing a few times with his weapon, then picked it up.

"This is Alpha-One to mission control. We found an alien. Dead."

The alien in question was a cat-sized being on four clawed legs. Its brown-black rubbery skin was dotted with visible pores, and top of that it had a large proboscis and two dark red, monotone eyes.

Homburger dropped the alien back onto the floor and kicked it away.

"What the… I got scanner reading approaching this way fast!" Yuri looked at his motion scanner.

"Krause, Taylor, is it you guys?"

"_Negative. Something wrong?"_

"_That's a negative, Alpha."_

The squad turned to the direction the reading was coming from.

The tactical AI already acquired the motion scanner's reading, and a red square appeared on Gaston's HUD, indicating the unannounced visitor.

Finally, it turned around the corner and Gaston saw another alien, just like the first one but alive.

With a low-pitched hiss, the thing charged at the squad.

"KILL IT!" Homburger yelled.

He didn't have to say it twice. Within a split second the agents shredded the monster.

"Good god…" Gaston lowered his rifle.

"_This is __Mission Control to all units. We have confirmed alien contact, I repeat, we have confirmed alien contact."_

"More readings on the scanner, sir!" Yuri exclaimed.

"Let's move, intercept them while we have the advantage! Gautier, watch my back! Stick close together!" Homburger dashed off, with the rest of the agents following him.

The squad turned around the corner, only to bump into the next abomination.

Gaston thought the first alien he'd seen was hideous, but this was even worse. A massive, blue-skinned humanoid with its head jutting out of its chest, a dripping mouth full of razor sharp teeth and two cold, gray eyes without pupils. Its rough, uneven skin was interlaced with green-tinted veins.

The next second he also noticed that in his clawed hands arms the alien was holding a weapon, which was aimed straight at Homburger.

"Shi-" the corporal didn't even realize what's going on as the weapon fired and he got knocked away by the projectile.

Gaston barely registered that he was standing face to face with the alien, who promptly proceeded to knock his rifle out of the startled agent's hands with a swipe of his claws.

But then the rookie felt his instincts take over. Time slowed down, the fear got pushed somewhere into recesses of his mind, and then he simply punched the alien into the eye with all the force he could muster.

Years of healthy lifestyle and working out forced by X-COM training paid off, not to mention that Gaston's fist was encased in armor. The alien reeled back, let out a roar of pain, then lost its balance and fell on the floor, giving Gaston time to ready the stun grapple.

Before the monster could recover, Gaston aimed and pulled the trigger five times.

Somewhere in the background he heard Sata let out a scream, but it was drowned out by the roar of the alien, who tried in vain to remove the five electrodes from his body.

Fortunately for Gaston, the alien turned out to be just as susceptible to the grapple as normal humans - in fact, it was an obvious overkill as the thing lost consciousness almost immediately.

The second alien in the distance chose to run away before anyone could react.

Gaston quickly holstered the grapple, grabbed his rifle and turned around.

Sata was sitting next to a wall, visibly shaken. Right next to her was laying another small alien like the one killed seconds ago. It had a visible burn wound from a laser rifle. Homburger in the meantime examined the projectile he's been hit with, while Yuri kept his eyes locked on the motion scanner.

"It's getting away." He said.

"_No worries."_ Buchard said. _"Krause and his squad are already waiting for it near the lift. It won't get far."_

And to prove his words, a hail of gunfire and an inhuman, agonizing roar in the distance signaled that the second humanoid had met its end.

"_We got access to the building's CCTV system a few minutes ago. So far it looks like you got them all, but Taylor's squad will do one final sweep.__ Meanwhile, haul this sleeping beauty to the Wolfhound and make sure it doesn't wake up."_

"Yamanaka, what's wrong?" Homburger turned to her.

"That… thing… it tried to latch onto my head…" She didn't finish as Homburger pulled her up by the collar.

"It's dead. Calm down. Now, you and Yakubik go collect the small ones. Me and Gautier will haul the big one."

The two grabbed the unconscious alien by the arms and started dragging it towards one of the multiple back exits.

Gaston shuddered at all the gasps coming from the police outside. Fortunately, the Wolfhound was ordered to come to this exit, so the agents didn't have to drag the alien further.

The hatch in front section of the APC opened, and Gaston helped shove the captive inside, where the cryogenic systems instantly froze it.

"Phew, that's done." Homburger sat down and leaned back towards the APC. Gaston did the same.

"Nice job you did there, rookie. Capturing a live alien takes some guts."

"Thank you, sir." Gaston smiled to himself. He'd become useful after all.

"Felt scared?"

"I'll be honest, sir, I was scared to the brink of a heart attack."

"That's normal. People who say they fear nothing are either liars or madmen. The point is, you must harness your fear."

"Easier said than done." Gaston sighed.

"Actually it's very easy. You see something scary, you aim the gun and keep shooting it until it dies."

In the distance, Yuri and Sata emerged from the building. Yuri was carrying the plastic bags with the little creatures, Sata was still recovering from the attack. After shoving the aliens into the bio-transport module, both sat down next to their squadmates.

"Alright, Yamanaka. Now that you've regained your wits, can you explain what this thing did to you?" Homburger asked.

"I told you, sir. This thing tried to latch on my head and… do something. I don't know. It had some immense strength, my helmet almost cracked under its claws… then I shot it off."

"Sounds just like something out of a bad sensovision horror movie" Yuri grunted.

"Shut up. You saw it yourself. Oh and thanks for helping."

"What was I supposed to do, shoot you in the head? That thing doesn't look bulletproof!"

"Zip it, both of you." Homburger interrupted. "We had one hell of a day already, don't make it worse."

The second squad appeared, dragging with them the bullet-ridden corpse of the second humanoid. In addition to that, Sergeant Krause was carrying the weapons of both of the aliens. After loading the trophies into the APC, Krause joined them.

"Nice job out there, Ed. It's the first time in the whole history of X-COM when we haven't lost anyone on the first mission."

Homburger saluted weakly. "Thanks, sarge. Gautier deserves most of the credit. He's the one who got us a living, breathing alien."

Krause turned to Gaston. "I'm impressed, Private. Keep up the good work."

"Yes sir!"

"Alright, third squad says they finished the sweep. Taylor says he hasn't sensed anything since we killed the last one, and Mission Control hasn't spotted anything on the cameras either. Get into the Wolfhound, we're out of here as soon as they get back."

* * *

**Tuesday, 7****th**** March - 13:45**

**X-COM Base One**

Even though it was obvious to everyone that the alien threat was very, very real, life on the base didn't seem to change in a slightest…

…except for everyone shuddering now and then at the muffled roars and wails of the captured alien humanoid, who was being literally taken apart by biochemists, both mind and body.

"Hm, interesting. It seems that its brain has no protection from psionic attacks at all." Pierre Lafevre, an oddly thin and pale man wearing large shades looked through the results of psionics test.

Shuji didn't have any prejudice towards mutants, viewing them as a curiosity instead. In fact, he was happy to have Pierre on the team, as X-COM research teams rarely got any personnel with potent psionic abilities – field operations were always given a priority. And the recruiters weren't too picky. Even the most frail and weak trainees were shaped up into fully-capable field agents through an intense training program that was viewed as sadistic by everyone outside X-COM, including Marsec.

Still, years of peace allowed the Science Corps to win over some of the prized individuals. Pierre was worth his weight in gold, Shuji mused.

"So, have you been able to probe anything of value?" He asked.

"Just basic instincts and objectives. Survive, feed, infiltrate, defend and wait. It's a really weird creature. It's obviously intelligent, but its memory is completely blank."

Both men glanced at the sealed containment chamber.

"What's really strange is that it gives off psionic emanations five times more intense than normal. Yet it is incapable of any psionic attacks on its own."

Shuji looked through the analysis being conducted on the lab's mainframe. "Tissue analysis shows that it's at most three days old. Perhaps it's a cloned creature. After all, most of the aliens we've seen in the Second War are cloned."

"I doubt it, sir." Pierre remarked. "Davies and Shimaoka have already done some tests on the corpse of the second alien. They're not the same."

"They haven't got any reproductive organs at all, that's obvious. Interesting… what of the other breed we've captured?"

"Hmm… well, we haven't gleaned much, but Davies is already calling them Brainsuckers. I think that name will stick."

"Mariko's sis got jumped by one of these, right?" Shuji asked.

"Yes. She told me that the Brainsucker tried to latch onto her head and pierce the helm with its proboscis."

"Great, just what we need, another Chryssalid. We'll need a live specimen to find out what it actually does, though."

"We've solved that problem. Come, let me show you." Pierre pointed towards the alien containment.

Realizing the danger of keeping live alien specimens in a base, X-COM never neglected building proper containment facilities. When not researched, all the specimens would be kept in stasis within armored cell blocks, complete with their own atmospheric regulators that could change the air inside the cell to the alien's native environment. In event of the cryogenic stasis being interrupted, the same regulators could release deadly nerve gas (X-COM never considered Geneva Conventions to be anything more than a pleasant anachronism).

If all that failed and the alien managed to leave the cell, it would instantly be shredded by eight plasma turrets, the last line of the defense. The same turrets also protected the cell from outside threats.

_Better safe than sorry_, Shuji thought as he approached one of the cells.

"In here, sir, we keep the projectiles from alien weapons. Thank the first squad's corporal, without his expertise we'd have a nasty situation on our hands."

The windows provided only one-way view, concealing the scientists from whatever was inside the cell.

Said "whatever" lookedlike a large, brown egg, covered in pores and familiar green-tinted veins.

"Corporal Homburger said that the alien fired a projectile just like this one at him. He got knocked down, and the pod's skin peeled back and revealed a Brainsucker. Which proceeded to attack private Yamanaka."

"Keep it in stasis for now. I want the whole team concentrated on the intelligent alien."

* * *

**Tuesday, 7****th**** March - 18:21**

**Parallax Tower**

The sun was already below the Barrier Walls, and most of the city was covered in a shadow, with the skyscrapers adopting a reddish hue.

In one such skyscraper, on the 75th floor there was an office. Marsec always frowned upon excess luxury, and the office was austere by modern standards. A few shelves, a desk with a computer on it, and a man sitting behind the desk. The finishing touch was a genuine leather chair - something rare, but quite affordable.

The shades on the windows were lowered by half, obscuring the man's face.

He was keeping his arms crossed and his eyes on the screen, with a videophone call active on it. There was no video feed on either side, however, only sound.

"X-COM has stepped up their efforts. They brought in an experienced commander and a lot of weaponry."

"_What makes you think they'll actually get off their asses and do something?"_

"Mind your manners. I have agents in Megapol reporting that their assault team stormed the Iliad Institute today. They captured several live aliens. Apparently the parasites didn't get any of them."

"_That complicates things. But not by much."_

"Don't you think that they'll figure out the reasons for Megapol's sweep failing earlier?"

"_Even if they do, it's of little concern to us. We are months ahead of them in our research, and have all sorts of alien specimens and technology.__ Not to mention that our resources are ten times as large as theirs."_

"They'll start suspecting something eventually. And I need to remind you that even if you do design a craft capable of crossing these damn gates, we can't just go and expose it."

"_Then throw them off our trail. Whisk someone on them. Get them involved in a gang war."_

"Don't you be giving me advice, Slater. I'm in charge here."

"_Don't yo__u be abusing your so-called power. If heads roll, a bureaucrat is much easier to replace than a talented biochemist. Sir."_

"I'll mention your insubordination in my next report. And from now on you're going to be on full alert. I want nobody, and I mean it, nobody to leave the base under any circumstances. Seal yourselves in, rely only on internal storage. All requests for supplies are to be passed directly to me."

"_Yeah-yeah, whatever, quit pushing me, I got my own head on my shoulders. Now, why don't you tip the Cult off that X-COM is killing their alien friends again?"_

"As much as I hate agreeing with you, that is the best course of action. For now."

The man spun around in his chair and looked outside. X-COM was hiding somewhere in the industrial part of the city… but looking for them was like searching for a needle in a haystack.

* * *

**Tuesday, 7****th**** March - 23:40**

**Mission Control, X-COM Base One**

"_Sector Eight. Status normal."_

Commander Buchard always felt when things were about to get ugly.

He sat in the command center for hours, leaving only once for a quick dinner.

Before his eyes, the city went to sleep. The streets and People Tubes became empty and the highways were now home only to the restless AI-controlled Autotrans and Megapol patrols.

Slowly the streetlights went dim to conserve energy and prevent light pollution – everything to make a regular citizen's night as quiet and enjoyable as possible.

"It's just so strange." Buchard muttered to himself. "Not a single person on the streets. Not even youngsters."

"They're all at home at the apartment blocks, sir. There are nightclubs in there, and besides, the city is still in a scare because of the damn gangs in the slums."One of the operators on the upper level heard him.

Buchard switched one of the monitors to a camera mounted on the walls overlooking said slums – menacing, dilapidated buildings constructed during early 2030's when overpopulation became rampant, quality of life plummeted down and the residential districts of old Toronto were blighted by monstrous low-grade apartment blocks that were by some cruel joke named after writers of dystopian fiction.

The city soon devolved into chaos of crime, gang warfare and civil unrest. Canada's government was unable to do anything about it, and only after the formation of the North American Alliance was some semblance of order restored.

Then came the Second Alien War, the results of which eventually claimed the city in 2043. Over the years Toronto died as its inhabitants fled, and then only the staunchest survivalists remained.

When NWC reclamation crews returned in 2063, they found nothing but ruins. Most of these were reprocessed for raw materials, some were saved and restored because of their historical value, and some remained unattended. The latter soon became a twisted mockery of the luxurious apartment blocks inside the city limits.

X-COM's surveillance network didn't extend past the city limits, so Buchard had to watch the slums from afar. They were supplied with power from Mega-Primus' grid, but most buildings were ruined to the point where only walls remained, let alone functioning power supply. Some of them also connected to each other using makeshift bridges, constructed at a high altitude – futile attempts by their first residents to escape the dangers of the streets below.

The grey concrete was very depressing and reminded Buchard of the world he grew up in. The same world that the humanity was trying to forget as quickly as possible.

"_Sir… you might want to have a look at this."_

Buchard snapped out of his thoughts and switched to the camera that the operator was referring to.

Said camera was watching the dimensional gate at all times. And right now the red pyramid started to pulse, releasing streams of energy every second.

_Here we go…_

"Acquire status."

"_Unknown, sir."_

"Zoom in. Alert the pilots, I want all our aerial vehicles to take off and head to that gate now."

"_Attention all __personnel, scramble X-COM threat. This is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill…"_

* * *

**Tuesday, ****7****th**** March, 2084 – 23:52**

**En route to Megaflyer Two**

"_Remember that you're fighting in a city. Watch where you're shooting__, minimizing civilian casualties is a priority."_

"Yes sir!" Ian McNeil answered eagerly as the trio of X-COM fighters accelerated to top speed.

"_Finally some excitement here"_ Eric Brown, the pilot of the Phoenix hovercar to his left said.

"_I can't believe you, Brown. We're in freakin__g flying cars, about to attack some freaking aliens whom we know nothing about and all you can think of is fun?" _Adam Hill was the last of the trio, a diehard pessimist who nevertheless was an excellent pilot.

Ian was probably the luckiest of the trio, flying the section's only Valkyrie interceptor. Reminiscent of old atmospheric fighters, a Valkyrie was an extremely dangerous opponent in space, and could hold its own even in the atmosphere.

"_Range to target… two thousand meters."_ The melodic voice of the ship's AI informed him.

The trio ascended above the city buildings, where they could get a good look on the glowing red tetrahedron.

Not a moment to soon, the gate _exploded_, leaving an bean-shaped UFO in its place.

The craft quickly moved away, allowing the gate to reappear and explode again. And again.

In half a minute, five UFOs came through, two of them looking like the ones seen earlier in the surveillance videos, the other three being "beans".

All five of the UFOs quickly formed a wedge and started heading north, to the center of the city.

"_All units, engage. Concentrate fire on the closest UFO. Good luck."_

Ian saw one of the "beans" flash red on his HUD.

Brown and Hill already accelerated to the craft, trying to close in so their missiles would achieve a guaranteed hit. Ian followed them a split second later, powering up his Valkyrie's weapons.

"_Target locked. Range… seven hundred meters."_

Ian adjusted one of his external cameras to track the hovercars.

"_Five hundred ."_

The missile launchers appeared on the sides of the vessels.

"_Four hundred."_

The cars vanished for a moment in a flash of light and a puff of smoke that followed as they unloaded their payload into the nearest UFO.

Janitor missiles made up for their inferior range and punch with their sheer quantity. Eight missiles were launched in the first salvo..

The UFO's thrusters flared as it registered the incoming threat and tried to avoid it, but despite its agility five of the missiles successfully hit their target.

The stricken alien craft immediately burst in flames and slowly headed for the ground, eventually crashing into the parking lot of a flyer factory.

The other three missiles that had missed their targets attempted to turn around, but their rudimentary tracking system and lack of fuel caused them to fall down. Two exploded harmlessly on an empty road, but the third hit a pillar of a People Tube, shattering the fragile glass-and-metal structure instantly.

"_Acquiring new target… target is now within firing range."_

Ian's new target was one of the "truffles". Before he could fire, he realized that the element of surprise was lost.

The UFOs suddenly revealed previously-hidden weapons. Each bore a twin-barreled cannon, all aimed at Hill's hovercar.

"Adam, watch the hell out!"

"_Holy shi-"_ The hovercar did a loop barely in time to avoid a series of purple beams aimed at it.

Since Hill was below the UFOs, the beams struck the flyer factory, piercing the glass on the roof and causing explosions inside.

Another salvo of missiles from Brown made the UFOs scatter, with him scoring a hit on another "bean" without any obvious effects.

Ian concentrated on his target and let loose his own arsenal. A bright yellow beam of his Lancer laser cannon pierced the UFO's hull, with a Prophet missile flying straight into the resulting breach a moment later.

The explosion shook the UFO, which then slowed down and took a dive to the ground much like the first one.

Then Ian felt his own Valkyrie tumble as the damage control registered a hit on the right wing, frying the armor there.

It took him a precious few moments to realize where the UFO was, during which another beam struck the hull from the same side.

Ian turned his craft around and saw his attacker – another "bean." The UFO was attacking with reckless abandon, sending shot after shot, most of these hitting the already ruined factory below him.

With a corner of his eye, he saw the UFOs finally score a hit on Hill's hovercar. The lightly-armored vessel could not just shrug it off like Ian's Valkyrie, and was thrown off its course, with a violent explosion blowing apart its rear.

"_God fu- this is Phoenix One, going down, I repeat, Phoenix One going do-"_The sudden buzzing indicated the communication systems failure as the crippled hovercar kept spinning towards the ground.

"Adam! Damn it!" Ian screamed as he opened fire upon the UFO attacking him.

Another hit momentarily disabled his external cameras, but the three missiles he launched plunged straight into the target, engulfing it in fire.

For a moment he thought that the UFO would crash slowly like the others, but this one was an obvious overkill. After a moment, the alien exploded, sending flaming bits and chunks everywhere.

In the distance, he could see the remaining "truffle" flying away while the last "bean" kept Brown busy. The UFO was heavily damaged, but still kept dodging Brown's missiles.

He let out a sigh of relief when he saw that Hill managed to stop his hovercar's spin and crash-land near the first UFO they shot down. He jumped out with a fire extinguisher, trying to put out the flame that was engulfing the Phoenix before it reached the ammunition.

"_McNeil, follow that escaping UFO. From what we know, it might attempt dropping infiltrators... oh snap."_

The UFO in question disappeared in the slums outside the city, where neither McNeil nor Buchard could track it.

Cursing at himself and the UFO at the same time, McNeil accelerated towards the slums, but it was too late as the "truffle" emerged again and made a run for it to the other gate.

In the meanwhile, Ian saw Brown finally shoot down his opponent. The flaming UFO took a dive straight into the trashed flyer factory, with a massive explosion following its fall.

Brown's hovercar was faster than the Valkyrie in Earth's atmosphere, but he was still too far to catch up with the remaining UFO before it went through the gate and disappeared.

Ian sat back and covered his face with his palm.

"_You did good, men."_

"Sir… we failed. We ruined a factory, lost a hovercar and that arse dropped a truckload of aliens into the slums."

"_And yet we now have two mostly intact UFOs. Besides, Hill's Phoenix can be repaired."_

"Adam… oh shit, he crashed near a UFO, what if aliens-"

"_At ease, Sergeant__. Hill already retreated to a safe distance and our agents are on the way. We're also keeping a track of the UFO and so far nothing has exited it. In fact, there was an explosion inside."_

"Phew, then I-"

"_Return to base, McNeil. The sooner we can start repairs on your Valkyrie, the better."_

"Yes sir."

"_You're right about the factory though. Marsec won't be too happy…"_

The rescue transports flocked to the burning factory, but to Ian the city seemed undisturbed.

For better or for worse, he couldn't tell.


	4. Paranoia

Brainstorming: How the hell do you use psiclones? So far the only way I could think of is stabbing yourself with it, but that's some major health hazard.

* * *

**Chapter 4: ****Paranoia**

**Wednesday****, 8****th**** March – 00:49**

**X-COM Base One**

"_We should be done here in half an hour, sir. These craft are small and we should have no problem with cutting them up and transporting them to base. I doubt they'll be of much use though."_

"Why is that?" Armand squinted.

"_They were unmanned. There is no evidence of any crew whatsoever. The larger craft had a troop compartment, but it wasn't connected to the rest of ship."_

"_Had_ a compartment?"

"_Apparently th__e ships'… insides were destroyed by a remote-controlled explosion."_

"We'll deal with that back on the base, Shuji. Bring them back to base, I want them decontaminated just to be safe."

"_Yes sir."_

"And hurry up. Klaus is trying to keep the media away until we're done, so we can write it off as arson. Megapol is good at keeping particularly nosy people out, but they can't last for too long."

"_Understood, we'll get it done ASAP."_

Buchard terminated the link and closed his eyes for a few moments.

_I must really be getting old for this…_

* * *

Squad rotation was already in force, and the Alpha squad was currently on guard duty near the entrance lift.

Guard duty was never an especially exciting task, but for the squad it was at least somewhat offset by a working radio, a coffee machine and a good conversation.

"…_the Technocrat party chairman Edward Nash accused the City Senate of withholding information regarding alleged sightings of UFOs and the blockade of Iliad institute yesterday…"_

"There isn't much difference between both of them, Extropians and Technocrats. Both believe in that somehow everyone will be better off in the future. Technocrats are a bit more skeptical, but that's it. The real and major difference is the support – Exies get theirs from megacorps, Techies rely on small businesses and common citizens." Yuri answered to Gaston's earlier question.

…_more than that, we have genuine footage of a dozen of heavily armed men entering the Institute at noon, and interviewed eyewitnesses claim that there were faint sounds of gunfire…_

"I don't believe it. Isn't there a single sane non-X-COM being here in the city that actually figured out what happened? It's not that hard!" Sata grunted.

"The longer they play dumb, the better. Secrecy is what kept X-COM alive and well during the first war, the longer we last here, the better." Homburger joined the conversation.

"But wouldn't that backfire somehow? Population ignorant of the alien threat can be very dangerous." Gaston mused.

"It probably would. We could also have a city fully aware of the alien threat. Imagine yourself as one of the citizens. What would you do if you had confirmed information on an alien invasion?"

"I… don't know… I'd try to get out? Run off to Mars?"

"Exactly, Private. And now imagine a whole city panicking and trying to get off-world."

"Uh-oh."

"That's right. As soon as the populace discovers the truth, we'll have to quarantine the entire goddamn city of one million three hundred thousand civilians, not counting those behind the walls, that's another two hundred thousand. And I'd rather do it as late as possible, _and_ I hope Commander Buchard agrees with me."

"Shh, guys. This sounds disturbing." Sata nodded at the radio.

"…_thank you for inviting me, Sharon. Now, as for your question of, pardon me my coarse language, what the hell is going on, I would… dare to say that we're dealing with new alien… let's say, contact here."_

"Contact? How about a fu-OW!" Yuri received an elbow jab from Sata.

"_Although Megapol scrambled all video feed from the area, I've personally interviewed some of the eyewitnesses, and all of them said that the troops that enter the Institute yesterday were not from Megapol."_

"_So that means… Marsec? Or X-COM?"_

"_I'd say the latter. Marsec has a very strained relationship with Megapol, and they have very limited military assets here. However, X-COM clearly has a foothold somewhere in the city, as they've opened their own public relations office in the Senate building back in last November."_

"It's true." Homburger noted. "Although it was just a formality, it never got staffed. We got a public liaison installed only yesterday."

"Who is it?" Gaston asked.

"Captain Andrea Jonlan, the Commander's aide-de-camp. I believe you two have already met."

"_Mr. Ansel, do you think that this is a cause of concern? After all, X-COM doesn't appear at random."_

"_That's a good question. However, I don't think that we should all brace ourselves for an immediate alien invasion. After all, X-COM is, no offence, the most paranoid of all government agencies, and I can't really blame them. It's within their usual __routine to investigate all rumors of alien activity with caution and often unnecessary display of force. Since the blockade of the Institute was finally lifted this evening, I'd say they haven't found anything."_

"_But what of the atmospheric phenomena and alien ships?"_

"_I think we should agree with the… stance of Cult of Sirius on this one. So far alien ships haven't made any aggressive… movements. They definitely belong to a different alien intelligence, and we should wait and try to… investigate their intentions before deciding on further course of action."_

"Well, at least he's trying… to do… something." Homburger muttered.

"More like nothing."

In the distance, the sound of the massive blast doors opening thundered throughout the hangar as several Airtrans with government markings on them landed inside.

"The UFOs just arrived. Let's go, men." Homburger stood up and motioned everyone to follow him.

The rear doors on each of the transports opened, and hangar personnel started to unload the large hermetically sealed containers.

"Decontamination first, then containers one through five to the physics lab, the rest to the storerooms. Get to work, people!" Shuji appeared out of the first Airtrans and started giving directions.

A few minutes later, another Airtrans appeared, this one without any markings at all. It entered through the fourth launch tube, the one leading to the base's only repair bay. The Valkyrie, which was undergoing makeshift repairs hastily lifted off and relocated to the hangar proper.

The transport proceeded to land, and from its cargo hold appeared the heavily damaged Phoenix.

"Holy…" Yuri whistled.

"Fortunately for us, the pilot is alive." Homburger smiled. "Which is a good thing. Those hovercars don't have ejection seats."

Meanwhile, the trickle of containers going to the storerooms disappeared, and Shuji walked up to the squad.

"That's it for now, men. You can return to the guardhouse."

"Yes sir." Homburger saluted.

Once again, silence descended upon the base, occasionally broken by the hiss of repair systems nursing the damaged hovercar back to life.

* * *

**Wednesday****, 8****th**** March – 12:21**

**Aldous ****Huxley Emporium**

Andrea sat back and let the gentle spring breeze caress her face through the open window.

She couldn't believe that what had looked like a busy day was already over. Journalists seemed to be content with her denial of any alien activity, and the press-conference ended earlier than expected.

So she had a few extra hours off duty, and she intended to spend it in a city that was supposed to be the closest thing to heaven on Earth.

But for now, a café in one of Mega-Primus' huge shopping malls would do. An amazing view of the city, an expensive (although that didn't bother Andrea much since X-COM personnel were all well-paid) cocktail and a fresh newspaper – all pointed towards a day well spent.

"May I?" A voice suddenly made her look away from the window.

A well-groomed, black-haired young man stopped by her table with a glass in his hand.

"Yes… of course," she nodded before setting her eyes on the newspaper on the table.

After a few minutes, she felt that the man's gaze was still on her.

"Is there a problem?" She asked.

"Why no, Miss Jonlan. That was quite an impressive performance earlier today," the man smiled. "I have a feeling that you were ready for worse than what they gave you."

For some reason, the man's tone seemed alarming. Andrea studied him closely. Quite young, attractive, dressed in the latest fashion taken out of the 1950's like _everything_ else in the city.

"Well… thank you." She replied carefully.

"Your family must be proud of you. To reach such a rank in X-COM is no small feat," the man continued.

This was the last straw.

"My family is dead, mister, and I'd rather not think of them." She carefully let one of her hands slide under the table.

"Oh, I'm sorry. That makes me a bringer of the good news then, _Miss Markus_."

A split second later the man's grin vanished as Andrea revealed the pistol she was hiding in her jacket.

"You have ten seconds to explain what you're trying to do here, and three have already passed," she hissed.

"Now now, Christine, no need for brutality. I am but a messenger. Your father is quite-"

"He's _dead_, and good riddance!" She interrupted. "I don't care how Thryn brainwashed you and your lot, but it's painfully obvious that he…"

"…escaped from the Rock back in 2068. It's a shame that he had to go into the hiding. We were as scared as you were. We didn't know what to believe. What could a six-year-old girl do? Nothing, especially considering that somehow X-COM spirited her away but a week later."

"I always hated him. Hated you. Hated the cult." The pistol barrel didn't move one bit.

The man laughed. "And you accuse us of brainwashing. Look at pot calling the kettle black," he crossed his arms. "I'm sure that good Commander Buchard won't mind… oh wait, scratch that, he actually will mind if we release the information on X-COM's training programs into public domain. He was the one who sponsored it, after all."

Andrea felt like she was hit in the face, and lost control of herself for a moment.

"Oh, have I raised some bad memories? My sincere apologies," the cultist kept mocking her.

"Get away from me."

"And please stop changing the topic of the conversation. Now, as I was saying…"

"Get-away-from-me."

"…your father is quite worried, and wishes to pass along…"

"Get the fuck away from me!" Andrea screamed and immediately suppressed her next tirade when she realized she was still in the mall.

Then another realization hit her.

Everyone in the café was a cult member.

Andrea knew it. From the looks, from the hands kept under the tables and behind backs, from the same expressions… she knew who they were.

"…his utmost concerns regarding your involvement with his hated enemy. Yes, enemy. He's quite amused that X-COM thinks itself safe. That 2036 and the Jihad are long over and won't be repeated ever again."

Andrea noticed that the barman pulled a stun grapple from behind the counter.

She stopped paying attention to the psycho's ramblings and instead started analyzing possible means of escape.

It didn't take her long. She smirked, calmly stood up, hid the pistol in her jacket, and headed for the exit.

_One… two… three… four… five…_Andrea started to count the precious seconds she used up.

The cultists first stared at her, dumbfounded, exchanged a few glances, and then the barman leapt over the counter.

_Six… seven…_ She didn't even look at him, relying on peripheral vision.

The barman was no less surprised at her behavior, but still approached her, the grapple ready and humming.

_Eight… nine… _The large sliding door was right before her, only a few more steps and it would open…

The signature humming made her twitch for a split second, enough to let the two stun rods miss her and hit the door instead.

Andrea didn't break her pace and smiled to herself when the door finally opened.

_Ten._

In one gigantic, yet elegant leap she crossed the doorway, turned on one foot to the left and made another step, taking cover behind the wall.

The door closed, but cultists dared not to follow her in a busy mall. For now.

Andrea breathed out in relief, and then took out a small earpiece and her PDA. As she started walking away, she dialed a number only she knew.

"_Something happened?"_ The voice on the other end appeared almost immediately.

"Yes sir. Cultists. Aggressive."

"How many?"

"No less than a dozen in my vicinity. I doubt they don't have backup covering the exits. I… I'll need some help to get out of here."

"_Understood. I'll send a rescue team ASAP. Don't hang up. We can track you with the signal."_

"Yes sir."

"_I'd alert the security, but I have my doubts about Megapol after yesterday. So you'll have to rely on yourself for a while."_

Andrea cast a momentary glance behind her, enough to notice several men following her.

"I studied their tactics. I should be fine."

"_If I'm not distracting you, do you have any ideas what are they after?"_

"They recognized me. One of them blabbed out that Reis is alive."

"_Your…"_

"Please don't."

"_Sorry.__ I didn't mean to. Regardless, this is a disturbing development. There's no telling how much power the Cult holds in the city then."_

"Everyone can be a cultist."

"_Exactly."_

Andrea stopped and nervously looked around. "I've got a problem."

"_There are more of them than you anticipated and they've surrounded you."_

"Right, but how-"

"_Old trick of theirs, corner the target __using overwhelming numbers. They've probably shut down the alarm or bribed the security, else they wouldn't dare."_

"Mixing with the crowd is not an option then. I'll escape into service tunnels. Permission to use lethal force?"

"_Granted."_

Andrea took a deep breath, darted around a corner and dashed forward to a door with an "Employees Only" sign on it.

"Damn."

To her eyes opened a claustrophobic's worst nightmare. A very long, _long_ corridor with a lot of doors. Shiny grey metal, narrow ventilation ducts, and worst of all the electronic locks on all of the doors in her immediate vicinity were glowing red, meaning they were closed. An X-COM field agent could easily disable the locks using the lockdown override codes in his armor or, in the worst case, just charge into the door and let his armored bulk smash through it, but Andrea didn't have either option. The only one left was to run.

Andrea took a deep breath, glanced at the pistol in her hand and ran. Even though she reached blinding speed, she knew she wouldn't reach her destination before the cultists caught up with her.

Once she heard the door open, she waited for two more seconds then lunged forward, turning around in mid-air and landing on her back.

_Gotcha._

Three cultists had already entered, their weapons drawn. Andrea landed the moment the door closed, and quickly fired three shots.

Her targets didn't even have time to register what was happening, the first two dropping dead from headshots and the third was hit in the throat instead, stumbling backwards and sliding slowly down the door, leaving a bloody trail.

Andrea didn't waste any more time. She twisted around and was back on her feet running in a few seconds.

Finally, she reached the end of the corridor. The door leading to the fire escape was not automatic, in case the power went out in the building.

Of course it was still locked, but with Andrea's momentum and strength the door was no obstacle. With a terrible clang, Andrea crashed into the door, tearing it off along with its hinges.

She barely felt a thing, quickly recuperated and contemplated her next move. Her heightened senses still picked up the sound of multiple doors opening, and she didn't have much time to think.

"_They… what the, they disabled the launch tubes."_ Buchard came through on the still-open channel.

That ruled out going down. The only way out was up, to the roof.

Andrea slowly started going up, hoping that the cultists would not think the same, when she saw a security camera aimed directly at her. That motivated her to start running instead, since stealth was out of the question now.

She looked down for a second, trying to count the number of cultists following her, then turned around to face an armored figure. She briefly thought that it was an X-COM operative from the rescue team, before noting that the uniform beneath the armor plating was blue in color.

He was also holding an M4000 rifle aimed at her.

"Drop it" he said, pointing at the pistol in her hand. Andrea complied. She knew better than to mess with Megapol.

Something odd struck her. The policeman was out of place in a mall, which would normally get staffed by the owner corporation's own security force. And he was also too heavily armed for a regular cop.

These realizations, however, came after the feeling that the man was _glowing_ with psionic energy.

Whoever the guy was, he wasn't a friendly, so Andrea did what the trooper clearly didn't expect. In a single lightning-quick motion she simply wrestled the weapon out of his hands and hit him in the face with its stock. Although it didn't hurt the man in the slightest, it had thrown him off balance.

To the policeman's and the approaching cultists terror, Andrea lifted the armored bulk off the floor and flung him over the railings, letting him crash into the cultists and buying her precious few seconds to escape from sight.

The roof access was so very, very near. Just one more door, and she would be free.

To her surprise, the door wasn't locked, it opened as soon as the sensors registered her approach. Andrea came through, only to realize that she's made a fatal mistake.

On the roof, waiting for her were a dozen of armored Megapol SWAT troopers, all with weapons trained at her, their bodies hidden behind large riot shields.

All of them had the same psionic emanations as the trooper on the stairs.

The least she could do was to warn Buchard of this new threat.

"Commander, Megapol is in league with th-ugh!" She didn't get to finish as the policeman closest to her fired a short burst which caught her completely by surprise.

Andrea didn't even feel pain at first, just a series of strong pushes that flung her away from the door. Even so, she landed on her feet, her reflexes acting independently. It was only a long five seconds later she realized that she'd been hit by no less than five bullets in her abdomen and chest, which would probably kill an unarmored human. She fell on her knees, clutching the wound with both hands.

However, her mind was anything but clouded. To her surprise, the troopers started firing on the emerging cultists, while the one who shot her aimed again with the intent to finish her off. She had only one more chance.

_Focus._ Andrea looked at her would-be killer's faceplate, concentrating…

The next sensation was something incredible. The man's mind was suspiciously easy to penetrate, even without a Mind Bender. However, his thoughts were an incomprehensible chaos. No person's mind was comfortable to feel, but this one was plain repulsive, nothing felt familiar. Nevertheless, Andrea focused again, thinking for the man, enforcing her will…

The policeman dropped his rifle and shield and reached for the stun grenades on his belt instead. His motions were fast, but jerky, reflecting the weakening state of his controller. Still, he quickly primed both, and before anyone could react he had thrown them – one at the door, the other at his squadmates.

Andrea severed the mental link as the other policemen riddled their possessed comrade full of holes, sending him tumbling off the slippery roof. But the deed was done, the yellow bell-shaped grenades exploded, releasing clouds of green stun gas over the entire roof, so dense that she couldn't see anything. She held her breath while both the cultists and the policemen succumbed to the gas, the latter taking slightly more time due to the helmet respirators preventing the gas from taking full effect immediately. Still, it was so potent that even they fell eventually.

After the last armored figure stopped moving, Andrea stood up. Even though she barely felt pain, she knew she had lost too much blood. Hopefully, the gas would dissipate quickly enough and allow her to breathe again.

But her luck ended here. There was no wind at all, and her lungs started to burn. In the distance, there was some faint, very familiar sound that had been growing louder since she had been shot.

She knew well that she could not order her body to stop breathing. Eventually, she took in some air. A small dose, but enough to make her dizzy. Another intake sapped the remaining strength from her muscles, making her fall on her back.

Her vision was getting hazy, but she saw the gas finally dissipate. It was too late, however. She was slipping into unconsciousness, a sleep she would probably not wake up from.

In the last few seconds she was conscious, she saw another armored figure appear over her. Her dulled senses barely registered that the man picked her up…

* * *

**Wednesday****, 8****th**** March – 14:19**

**Medical Bay, X-COM Base One**

In the late 21st century, medicine was completely automated. Advances in nanotechnology and creation of sentient artificial intelligence quickly left human doctors unemployed, and the responsible megacorps – Nanotech and Sanctuary Clinic – rich beyond their wildest dreams. The technology of genetic and molecular manipulation, a war trophy taken in the first two Alien wars, was also becoming cheap and widespread, although under strict NWC control. Its most common use was to cure especially troublesome diseases and to reverse aging, but rumors continued to circle that X-COM and Marsec were trying to go the way of the aliens – using genetic engineering to create better soldiers.

Such rumors were unfounded and mostly circulated in tabloid media, and any serious accusations were met with threats of lawsuits for libel.

Combining all advances of medical science, the equipment of X-COM's own medical bay could heal the most grievous wounds, rebuild mangled or lost limbs and even repair the synthetic components of androids. Even the worst injuries could be healed in a matter of days, at most – a week.

Buchard was completely aware of this and trusted the medical AI, which kept reassuring him that Andrea's life or health was no longer in any danger. But he still couldn't steady himself and kept pacing back and forth before the intensive care chamber, occasionally stopping to look at the unconscious patient. He could barely see her through the tinted glass lid, which kept her sealed off from the outside and allowed the chamber to be supplied with increased amount of oxygen. It also allowed the risk-free injection of stimulants to temporarily disable the patient's immune system, allowing the nanobots to work their magic without being rejected.

Armand sighed as he looked at her body again, barely visible beneath the all the life-saving equipment, ranging from basic stuff like heart monitor electrodes and feeding tubes to nanobot control rods.

"_You seem to be very concerned, Commander."_ A mechanical, genderless voice spoke from seemingly nowhere.

"Yes, Soup, yes I am." Buchard answered the AI.

"_I __once again assure you, Captain Jonlan is completely safe. I did not induce a coma as she has an abnormal pain tolerance. I suggest you return to your duties, since reconstructive surgery will take approximately four more hours. If you wish, I can accelerate her return to consciousness once that is done."_

"No, that won't be necessary. Let her rest, and keep me informed of any developments." Buchard said, reluctantly leaving the room.

"_I certainly will, Commander. Thank you for understanding."_

The room was silent for a few minutes, after which another person entered the room. Shuji Iwahara.

"Good day there, Soup! I came as fast as I could, we're pretty busy with… whoa. Is that why you wanted me to come?" He stared at Andrea for a moment.

"_Yes, this is the reason for my summons, Shuji."_

"Hm, I'm no medic, and you should-"

"_Please allow me to state my reasons. I am in need of your expertise, since Captain Jonlan is, for a lack of better term, a strange case."_

"Strange how?" Shuji still didn't understand a thing. To him Andrea was something like Buchard's secretary, although he knew that this impression was false.

"_When I attempted tissue repair, I noticed several anomalies in her body that seriously confused the nanobots. My findings are on the monitor to your left."_

Shuji took a look, quickly reading through enormous amount of information, picking out the most important bits.

"_Her body has old, but very distinct traces of invasive surgery and genetic manipulation. I consulted my databases for all sanctioned operations that could have been performed on her by X-COM or Sanctuary Clinic, but found no procedure matching my analysis. I searched through all biology-related databanks open to me, and what has been done to her very closely resembles the common alien surgical enhancement techniques of the First Alien War."_

"I can see what caused your interest, Soup. This is not the butchery the aliens used to do, but it comes close. It'll take some time to dig into this, but from what I can see right now her nociceptors are either removed, or atrophied. Possibly with chemical agents."

"_This means that Captain doesn't feel physical pain?"_

"No. She does feel pain, but it's… really a shadow. Pain is essential for injury prevention and detection, so I'd assume she feels just enough to properly analyze her own state. Whoever that mad carver was, he was skilled and knew how to make it best."

"_I assume there are further alterations?"_

"It's really difficult to say what's natural and what's added. Slowed aging, wired reflexes – this stuff is definitely artificial, but… damn, she'd put the entire NAA Olympics team to shame. It's like she's been training non-stop since infancy."

"_These enhancements violate NWC morality regulations, especially…"_

"Hush, Soup. We're X-COM. I know this is hard for you to grasp, especially since Hippocratic Oath is hardcoded into you, but here… let's say, we're pushing the limits sometimes. X-COM keeps a lot of things secret, and I'd assume Captain Jonlan here is just another experiment."

"_Commander Buchard seems to be emotionally attached to her."_ Soup said in its impassive voice.

"All things will be revealed in due time, Soup. In the meanwhile, we should remember that we're in a military organization where talking too much is hazardous."

Shuji turned to leave, already having realized that he went over the edge in his conversation with the overly curious AI.

"Oh and Soup, one last thing. Don't tell of our conversation to anyone. Just concentrate on healing the bullet wounds and override all nanobot attempts to touch anything else. Pretend you never noticed anything, at least for a while. The Commander is not the person to keep secrets from those he trusts, so let's just wait."

"_I will do as you say, Shuji. Have a nice day."_

* * *

**Wednesday****, 8****th**** March – 14:31**

**Bakunin Block**

The dark red behemoth crashed through the flimsy fence made of scrap metal, flinging debris and junk around as it made its way to the dilapidated apartment block.

"Holy shit…" The two Diablo gang members were in the middle of cleaning their weapons – antiquated semi-automatic shotguns, when the APC stopped just a few feet away from them. Almost immediately the rear door opened, and twelve agents emerged, their weapons trained on the stunned gangsters.

"Crap, Rico, we're done for…" The carefully disassembled shotguns were damning evidence to the police… except that it wasn't the police.

"Can we have a lawy-" The other man swallowed his own words as he identified the small badges on the armor. "X-COM?"

The foremost trooper immediately answered. "Yes, X-COM. We have reliable information that an alien craft passed through here the last night and we're sweeping the area. Do you have anything to report? Your cooperation will be rewarded."

Normally Diablo were suicidal in defending their territory, but Diablo did respect X-COM to a certain degree. "In here? Nah, our place is always locked down nice and tight. That flying piece of crap was hanging over Osiron turf though, did you check there?"

"We checked the Osiron territory first, and didn't find anything. Yours is the last building in this sector."

"I swear, man, we don't have anything. Some peeps been acting strange, but you guys know how this place is, nobody is sane here."

"Acting strange?"

"Yeah. Some hobos on the top floors have been shambling around like zombies or something. We laughed at them for a while, and then locked them in when they wouldn't let us sleep."

"Morons." The trooper sighed. "How many people are in the building?"

"Now? Probably no more than fifty, most are out looking for some grub. Had a fire some time ago too, so we're pretty much the only Diablos around."

"Christ you people are idiots. All units, go weapons hot, scanners on, we're sweeping this dump," the commander turned away as the agents made their way to the gate leading into the block's courtyard.

"Hey!" Rico shouted, still trying to believe his luck. "You said something about a reward!"

"Reward?" Rico shuddered as the armored man turned to face him. "It's a reward enough that I didn't shoot both of you retards for letting the aliens breed in a goddamn slum."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I decided to devote this section to answering questions regarding to plot, since I'm borrowing quite heavily from obscure elements of X-COM franchise, such as Interceptor.

Reis Markus is mentioned briefly in Interceptor as a leader of the Cult of Sirius. So is the Rock, the asteroid prison from which he escapes. Oh and Kate Thryn, insignificant pawn who will die very, very soon.

Apocalypse players probably already guessed what happened to Megapol in the Iliad Institute. To the rest – well, I'll get to it eventually.

"2036 and the Jihad" refers to a war between insane Cult of Sirius bent on welcoming our alien overlords and the equally insane Inquisitors trying to destroy all knowledge of alien existence (Interceptor lore again). This will also be relevant in the plot at some point.

No, Buchard is not an old pervert, and he's not attached to Andrea in that sort of way.

Well, this seems to be all my current audience wanted to know. Feel free to ask your questions in your reviews, it's best to keep this story comprehensible.


	5. Escalation

**Chapter 5: Escalation**

**Wednesday, 8****th**** March – 14:40**

**Bakunin Block**

The armored agents moved slowly and carefully, seeing as the creaking floor did not seem very durable.

"_Twenty-second floor__ west wing clear. Nobody here but civvies."_ Corporal Taylor came through on Krause's radio.

"_East wing clear.__ The staircase up has collapsed." _Corporal Zurovec also reported in.

"Your orders, Commander?" Krause asked Buchard, who was back to watching them.

"_No other choice but to go up, Sergeant. I trust Taylor's senses and your motion scanners, and they say that something is definitely up there."_

"Yes sir. Charlie, you'll take the west wing fire escape. Delta, join up with us, we're going from the center."

"_Copy that."_

"_All units, __stay on full alert. You're going into a heavily damaged section of the building."_

"Yes sir."

"Scanner contact!" Eric Seidler, a private in Krause's squad exclaimed.

The scanner's feed was transmitted to Krause's HUD, but the multiple floors confused the scanner so much that it could not determine the Z axis of the contact's location.

"Damn it. Ninety years' worth of progress and these things are still unreliable as ever." The sniper, Kevin Bryant, seemed to think the same thing as Krause.

"Doesn't matter, they're all upstairs." Krause looked suspiciously at the large steel door separating the floor in two. Another – hopefully intact – staircase heading up was on the other side.

The sounds of footsteps and four scanner readings appeared, but this time it was Zurovec's squad. Clad in the same armor, with the same standard weapons, except that the agents themselves were slightly nervous – it was their first mission.

"Night vision on… let's go."

"_Charlie, hold until further notice."_ Buchard was still watching.

"_Yes sir."_

The door opened, revealing… darkness. Krause cursed as he remembered that the windows of the burnt-out sections were welded shut with metal plates, blocking off any light at all.

The two squads carefully stepped in, carefully pointing their weapons at every nook and cranny, having already been briefed on the Brainsucker threat.

So far they hand found nothing. They were halfway through to the staircase when Buchard ordered Taylor in. After a few very loud clangs, his squad tore down down the steel plate blocking the entrance from the fire escape and joined the rest.

Krause felt sweat form on his brow as the agents checked every apartment for any signs of alien activity. There was nothing found on this floor.

Or the next one.

Or the one after that.

* * *

**Mission Control. X-COM Base One**

At the same time in the relative safety of his command center, Armand Buchard was lost in his thoughts.

Part of him was following the holographic projection of the agents. Another part was thinking about what happened at the mall.

It seemed so simple at first - Cult of Sirius hoping to hurt X-COM by taking out or kidnapping an important member. Since Andrea was X-COM's public face in the city, it seemed logical that they would come after her.

They knew who she was, thus adding two more variables into the equation. First, was the Cult bluffing about their leader being alive? And second, how did they figure out who Andrea really was? He made sure to cover up all the trails. He had even changed the girl's name and forced her to spend a large part of her life on a nameless asteroid base in the Frontier.

Still, the Cult of Sirius was infamous for its disturbingly efficient intelligence gathering techniques, so technically they could've gotten a hold of this information. After all, it wasn't X-COM's most well kept secret.

And this not too logical chain of events was thrown into chaos by the third variable. Megapol troops on the roof.

What were shock troopers even doing there? Homburger's squad could not stick around to investigate seeing as they had to rush Andrea back to base. Why did they fire at will on (supposed) civilians? Buchard knew he'd have to call Klaus right after the sweep in the slums was over, and the conversation would definitely be anything but pleasant.

The old man sighed. This was shaping up to be a much more dangerous operation than before. In the first three wars the aliens targeted the civilian population rarely, mostly for intimidation – so-called "terror missions". Right now, however, the war was to be fought in a city. And to make matters worse, this time X-COM could be attacked by forces other than aliens.

"_Scanner contact, thirty meters north."_

"_It's the corridor to the west wing. Stack up at the door."_

He watched Krause's squad as it gathered at the sides of the door. Zurovec retreated a bit to cover the rear.

"_The hell is that noise?"_ Seidler asked.

Buchard switched one of the audio channels to Seidler's audio receptors. He immediately heard heavy footsteps… but strange ones, as if someone was walking in ankle-deep mud.

"_Sir… these blue aliens made the same sound last time."_ Krause spoke up.

"Understood. We have alien contact. Bravo, you're going in. Charlie, cover Bravo. Delta, cover their backs."

"_Copy that. Going in on three… one… two… THREE!"_

* * *

**Bakunin Block**

Krause watched Seidler charge into the doorway, following him a split second later.

And he was already too late.

Something that looked like a pale purple lightning beam hit Seidler in the arm, cutting through state-of-the-art armor like hot knife through butter. The poor rookie screamed in pain and collapsed as the air filled with the sharp smell of burnt flesh and ozone.

Krause clenched his teeth, dropped down on the floor and rolled away, just in time to avoid the next shot.

"Frag!"

Bryant came in prepared, throwing a primed AP grenade as he lunged through the same doorway. The grenade missed the aliens, but the explosion raised smoke and dust everywhere.

The fourth and final member of the squad, Samuel Miller entered slowly, laying suppressive fire down on the aliens with his autocannon.

Krause looked into the distance and cursed. There were no less than four Anthropods – how the eggheads called them already. Only one of them had the same weapon as yesterday. Three others were armed with strange energy weapons. Fortunately, Miller's firestorm forced the aliens to retreat into the abandoned apartments on the sides of the corridor, allowing Krause to get up.

"Miller, cease fire, conserve ammunition. Bryant, watch the doors too, everything coming outside must die. Seidler, how bad are you?"

The only answer was a groan.

Cursing everything, Krause darted to the rookie's side. The sight was definitely grisly – the left arm was almost severed by the beam, which also instantly cauterized the flesh. Most of the armor protecting the limb seemingly evaporated.

"Easy now… Easy…" The Sergeant activated Seidler's medi-kit, allowing the nanobots to start piecing the arm back together. A hiss indicated that stimulants have also been injected, and in a few seconds the private stood up, holding his rifle with his good arm.

In the meanwhile, Taylor's squad also came in. As soon as that happened, the aliens appeared from the darkness again.

This time the agents were prepared. Thin red laser beam made a hole in one of the Anthropods' head, while Miller fired a short burst that made the aliens scramble for cover. So far X-COM had an advantage as the aliens were also relatively poor shots.

Seidler's medi-kit powered off, having done its job. Although Eric would have to visit the medical bay back at the base, he was back in shape to fight.

"_Stay back, Sergeant. Let Charlie handle this one_."

Krause nodded, forgetting that Buchard couldn't see him. He motioned the rest of the squad to follow him, to cover Taylor's men.

As Charlie's point man approached one of the doorways, a strange yellow-purple, cross-shaped object flew out.

_Smart on their part_ Krause thought as Taylor yelled at his squad to take cover.

Then another nasty surprise presented itself. The alien grenade – at least, Krause assumed it was a grenade – _jumped_ into the air and flung itself at the retreating agent as soon as he moved.

Nobody had time to react. The victim raised his arms in desperation and tried to drop down onto the floor, but the cursed thing exploded right into his face.

Dust started to fall from the ceiling and Krause's audio receptors were overloaded for a moment as the explosion flung the agent a good three meters back, and Krause himself lost balance. The aliens seized the opportunity to emerge from cover again.

Worse yet, the corroded supports gave way, and the stricken agent fell through a large hole in the floor. As if that wasn't enough, his armored bulk smashed through the next floor, completely concealing the unlucky soldier in a cloud of a dust two floors below.

"Shit, Petersburg!" Taylor yelled down the hole. "His comms are out!" he shouted to Krause, before dropping on the floor just in time to avoid another shot.

Miller and Charlie's heavy weapons man once again opened fire, the tracers marking the path of the bullets. In response to that, however, one of the aliens raised one of its arms revealing something in its claws.

_A Megapol smoke grenade?_ Krause was again baffled, but that didn't stop him from finally shooting the dodgy alien in the head. The figure slowly leaned backwards, before falling down with a loud thud. Unfortunately, in its last moments it managed to trigger the detonator on the grenade.

Krause cursed as the nearly impenetrable black smoke filled the corridor. Both X-COM and the aliens stopped their firefight to conceal themselves. An uneasy silence settled over the slum, interrupted only by ragged breathing barely heard through the comms.

"Sarge, we need to send someone to check on Petersburg." Taylor said quietly.

"Send who? Corporal, we don't have anyone. Those damn things have us all tied down and Zurovec is still busy covering our rear."

"_Delta One here, we have multiple scanner contacts closing in."_

"That's just great." Krause groaned. "Delta One, we're engaging the enemy, you're on your own for now."

"_Roger that Bravo One.__ We'll hold 'em."_

"Hey… what the…" Taylor raised his hand to his helmet. "Carl… the link with HQ is dead!"

One of the things Krause hated with passion (aside from this city, this part of the city, and this particular landmark of this part of the city) was when someone referred to him by his name. As a former NWC military officer – _real_ military, not the Marsec clowns - he valued discipline and subordination a lot. And a breach of such discipline could distract him rather easily.

"If I like you, _Oscar_, you may call me Carl. But guess what? I don't... wait, what did you just say?"

An angry grunt was his first answer. "The communications link to HQ is lost, _sir_."

Krause tapped the side of his helmet. Sure enough, the big red message in the corner of his HUD informed him of connection loss. Fortunately, the squad laser link and the antiquated radios were still intact.

But before he could think about it, the smoke started to dissipate, allowing the cat-and-mouse game to begin again.

Private Miller barely managed to spin up the barrels of his autocannon before a series of five energy beams reduced his head and upper torso to vapor. Krause cringed at the loud beep indicating the agent's death on his squad link.

The troopers opened fire again, yellow tracers and red laser beams contrasting against the purple of alien weapons.

"Hit the deck!" Krause yelled, dropping down on the floor right next to Miller's charred remains. The rest of the troopers followed suit. However, the remaining autocannon user was a bit slower due to bulk of his weapon – and that cost him his life.

Both Krause and Taylor were enraged and horrified at the sight of the trooper slowly sinking to his knees, trying to raise his hands to the sizzling hole in his chest. His strength quickly faded, and all the remaining agents could do was to watch his vitals fade on their HUDs as the nearly lifeless body tumbled into the same hole Petersburg disappeared a few minutes earlier. Krause bit his lip and grinned as the combined firepower of Marsec rifles tore another alien into ribbons. Finally, the last alien apparently panicked and tried to run for the far end of the corridor, zig-zagging to avoid incoming fire – but Bryant hadn't scored 93 on his accuracy ratings just for show. The laser beam planted itself squarely in the middle of the Anthropod's spine, with Taylor's shot finishing the monster off a split second later.

"Corporal!" Krause shouted as the both squads sprang up on their feet."

"Sir!" Taylor quickly turned around.

"Search the rooms, make sure everything that doesn't speak English is dead, dying, or stunned. You're in command if something happens to me."

"_Incoming!__ Squad, get down, return fire!"_

"Understood. Carr, on my six."

"_Good Lord, what are those things…"_

"Bryant help Delta out. Seidler, work on our link to HQ."

"_Shut up and throw that fucking grenade already, Kemp!"_

"Sir?" Bryant had a hint of concern in his voice.

"I'm going down that hole." Krause wished he could spit on the floor. "Those bastards already got Miller and Crossett, I'm not letting them have Petersburg."

* * *

**Mission Control, X-COM Base One**

"Cameras in sectors five and nine are down!" The panicked operator shouted.

"All of them?" Buchard kept calm, although he was just as startled by the sudden blackout.

"Yes! Wait… no, camera Seven is still up!"

"Camera Seven… switch to it and zoom in on Cultivator Two, on camera Eight!"

"Sector one is down, only the Senate is still online!"

Buchard groaned as he saw a pillar of black smoke rise from where camera Eight should've been. "Sabotage! Alert all sectors, we are under attack, presumably by the Cult of Sirius. Recall all observers and field operatives, our cover is compromised!"

"Yes sir!" The operator started shouting orders into his microphone.

"Place Valkyrie One and Alpha squad on alert! Send Phoenix One on recon mission to Bakunin Block, reestablish the link to our troops by any means necessary!"

"Yes sir!"

Buchard turned back to huge monitor. _You're going to have to do better than that, freaks_ he thought. "Get Commander Steinbach on the line!"

* * *

Bakunin Block

Krause dropped down onto the floor with a thud. Good for him, it held this time.

The sergeant held still for a few moments, listening to the sounds. The firefight above could barely be heard here, but an occasional shake and falling dust indicated that Delta had no second thoughts about using grenades, even though they had the potential to bring the whole building down on them.

Krause paused for a second and clenched his teeth at the sight of Crossett's lifeless body. He was too late to save him, but…

The agent quickly sprang up on his feet and turned around a few times with his rifle trained. Something wasn't right.

Petersburg was missing.

Krause checked again the display for vital signs of his squad. Even with the communications blackout, the squad link was still intact. He hastily summoned a list of all available agents, with three names shown as confirmed KIA – their armor AIs were designed to keep working even after their users died.

However, Petersburg's data was simply missing. He was still connected to the link, but that was it.

"_Sector… not…"_

Krause lowered his rifle for a moment. He was almost sure he just imagined this barely-audible line in a raspy, emotionless voice.

His HUD however informed him that it was a radio message broadcast on an open channel by Private Edgar Petersburg.

"_Power… such… power__…"_

Then the sergeant noticed another thing on the floor which escaped his attention at first, but which explained a lot. A dead Brainsucker.

Krause approached the thing and rolled it over with his boot. There wasn't a single wound, but the bugger was definitely dead.

"_Stay… stay a… a… no…"_

_This is just great_ Krause thought, scanning his surroundings. He didn't have a motion scanner with him, so he'd have to rely on his senses.

The agent started slowly walking down the corridor in the direction of the steel door separating the burnt-out part of the building from the relatively intact one. He hastened his pace once the creepy transmissions became louder, indicating that their source was closer.

It was then he sensed that something wasn't right. There was a clattering noise _alien_ to this world. He abruptly turned around to reveal five Brainsuckers that had been sneaking up on him.

One of the things got close enough to leap at him, but Krause simply backhanded it, crushing the creature's fragile skeleton. The rest didn't even get close, as the veteran agent quickly ducked, set his rifle on full auto and sprayed the aliens twice, with the force of impact throwing their bodies a good three meters away.

Grinning to himself, Krause stood up and turned around again… to face a corpse.

* * *

"Keep firing, keep firing!" Corporal Zurovec yelled, although it wasn't really necessary. The doorways had already been perforated by an endless hailstorm of bullets and laser beams, aimed at the encroaching horde of Brainsuckers and some new aliens – pink humanoids that had funnels where a head should've been.

The corpses kept piling up, as these aliens were notably less intelligent than Anthropods and kept blindly charging into the fray. They made up for it, however, with sheer numbers. There were at least six dead Brainsuckers already, one of which was cut down in the mid-jump to Emile Kemp's face.

"How many of them fit into that goddamn ship?" Bryant seemed to think the same thing as Zurovec as the latter sent another burst into one of the humanoids.

By all accounts, it didn't make any sense whatsoever. The ship was already confirmed to be an unmanned scout carrying a small party of infiltrators.

However, that mystery had to wait as another pink monster made a sound that somehow resembled one made by a phlegm-filled throat… and its funnel head spat out a large green blob of ooze towards Zurovec, hitting him square in the chest just as he stood up to throw another grenade.

"Shit!" The corporal recoiled as the disgusting liquid started dripping off his armor, making a sizzling noise everywhere it touched.

It did not however eat all the way through the armor, and the offending creature was quickly shot.

A few moments later, the stuff completely evaporated. After making sure it hadn't damaged anything vital, Zurovec suddenly realized that it was too quiet. There were no more aliens.

"_Delta, this is Charlie__ One, come in! What's going on down there?"_

"Delta One here, Charlie. We're fine. All clear."

"_Thought as much. I can't sense anything else around.__ At least, nothing remotely intelligent. We've found some pretty funny stuff though. Some kind of an egg."_

"Suggest you stun it and bring it to the Wolfhound, Charlie." Zurovec sounded relived. Taylor's psychic abilities enabled him to sense everything that didn't belong in a large radius. So when he said sector clear, the sector was clear. Which meant that fighting was over, and that Zurovec's squad got through unharmed…

"Delta, how did it go? The fight?"

"_Three dead, Charlie T__wo is MIA. Bravo One is searching for him two levels below. Speaking of whom… Bravo One? Sarge? Are you in there? Bravo One, respond!"_

* * *

"Ugh!" was all Krause could say as his armored form landed on top of the dead aliens. He shook his head and looked once again at the assailant.

Petersburg's armor was cracked and charred, but not too damaged from the explosion. His breath came out in loud, wheezing gasps, yet he stood perfectly still, his hands down.

Krause then noticed that Petersburg's helmet was cracked and the rebreather broken, giving him an even more creepy appearance.

Fortunately for the sergeant, his rifle was still in his right hand. With little difficulty he pointed it straight at Petersburg.

"Hold it right there, Private."

The latter stopped for a moment, and then quickly reached for the grenades on his belt.

Quick as he was, Krause was still quicker. Without second thought, he shot Petersburg in the arm, making the latter recoil in utter silence before charging straight at his downed superior.

Krause cursed under his breath as he unloaded the contents of his rifle's magazine into the charging man. At this nearly point-blank range not even Megapol armor could withstand such an attack. Holes followed by tiny blood fountains punctured Petersburg's chest, making him finally stumble and collapse right on top of Krause.

The sergeant grunted as he pushed the dead body to the side and stood up. "This is Bravo One to all units. Charlie Two is… KIA."

"_Copy that, Bravo One." Taylor's voice was emotionless. "We've finished the sweep and secured the artifacts and specimens."_

"Mission accomplished, platoon. Return to the Wolfhound, make sure there's nothing left here. Bravo Three, get over here, I need you to haul a casualty."

"_Uh… yes sir."_

"_This is Sentry Two One to all X-COM personnel, can anybody hear me?"_

Krause momentarily forgot about the mission. "This is Bravo One reading you loud and clear Sentry Two One."

There was an audible sigh of relief on the other side. _"Thank God, Bravo One. Command thought you were… what happened?"_

"Alien activity. Took some casualties, returning to the Wolfhound now."

"_Roger that. Somebody's hacked into our hyperwave transmitter, that's why we… oh fuck."_

"Come again, Sentry?"

"_Wolfhound looks __…damaged, Bravo One."_

_Aw crap._ "All units, meet up at 22nd floor."

* * *

"Wake up, you good-for-nothing."

Rico Saiz didn't care. All he ever wanted was to everyone in the whole world to leave him alone. To let him enjoy his own life, to live in safety, to live with faith in tomorrow.

But no. His whole life was instead a chain of being stepped on and stepping on others. He considered himself a good guy, at least. He didn't enjoy taxing these poor sods in the slum for half of their pitiful wages earned through working god knows where selling god knows what… or even who.

Being a Diablo member was definitely better than being one they treaded on. However, that didn't make his life any less miserable.

"I said wake up. Damn it…"

This voice seemed so familiar. Could it be his father's?

No. His father died when Rico was an infant. It still was someone familiar. His boss? One of the residents? His best friend Manny? He finally opened his eyes, squinted, trying to get the ringing noise out of his ears…

Unfortunately, the reality – as always – was much worse than he expected.

It was that X-COM guy from before. Rico tensed, remembering the man's last threat.

"What the hell happened here?" The faceless agent asked.

Rico found himself sitting up against the wall.

"What happened? What are you…" The surge of pain brought the memory of what happened but minutes ago.

A barrage of missiles out of nowhere, explosions, strange armed men… then another missile, this one much bigger… All of this was hazy due to the fact that Rico remembered being slammed into the wall by the first blast wave.

"I… I can't feel my…" Rico groaned as he realized he could only move his head, and then barely.

_Oh fuck I'm gonna_ _puke_ he thought, trying to turn away.

Then he saw the bodies. First the aliens, then the X-COM agents… and then the bloody puddle that was once his best friend.

That was the last straw, and he audibly whimpered in pain as his stomach's contents spilled out over the dirty pavement, making him feel every broken body in his body. Which was, from his perspective, _the_ every bone.

"Aw, you pussy…" He barely heard the agent talking on the radio. "Sentry Two One, we got an eyewitness in critical condition here. Pick him up and get him to Iceberg. Come again? Wolfhound's fine, their antenna got knocked off by the explosion and hyperwave comms were jammed. Now come down here, this ganger isn't going to last much longer without a medic."

Rico felt the agent's hands carefully steady his body so he wouldn't fall into his own vomit, and then fainted again.

Sergeant Carl Krause sighed. Even though technically the young gangster occupied the lowest possible position in Krause's social hierarchy, he was still an innocent caught up in the major players' fight.

And if Krause knew anything about X-COM security protocols, the lad was in for some major, irreversible and very unpleasant changes in his life.

Provided he survived the trip to the base, of course.

* * *

Wow. Apocalypse is an excellent game, but a terrible story. You can't just retell a playthrough, a lot of things require expanding, fleshing out, or even outright changing in order to make sense.

So, my earlier promise to stay as close to canon as possible is now second to my desire to make this story interesting to read.

On an unrelated note, please remember that reviewing is caring. It also helps me spot plotholes and/or stuff that needs explaining.


	6. Uneasy Calm

**Chapter 6: Uneasy Calm**

* * *

**Wednesday, 8****th**** March – 19:59**

**X-COM Base One**

Shapes and sounds flowed in and out of his mind, forming impossible patterns that yet somehow made sense. Memories of the past, mad visions of the future, darkest thoughts, suppressed fears – all came to the surface, descending upon his already strained sanity with no mercy.

Yet gradually the darkness receded, and he felt that he was in control of some of his senses again…

Voices. He was sure he heard voices. Which meant that he probably wasn't dead yet.

"Are you feeling okay now?" A man's voice appeared first from the ringing silence. It wasn't anything familiar.

"No. But better." He was answered by a woman. A weak-sounding voice, yet oddly cold and confident.

"I am such an idi-"

"This was my fault alone. I should've headed right back to base."

"Who could've known? What I know is that I made the mistake somewhere. Three casualties on the second day, and we've barely avoided a fourth. You owe Alpha squad some drinks." The man's laugh died as soon as it began.

"Compared to the previous wars-"

"This isn't the previous war, Andrea. Every casualty matters. Just because everyone I knew in the forties is dead now doesn't mean it's the way it should be."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"I know you didn't."

An awkward silence settled down and for a moment Rico was afraid that he might have passed out again.

"Who's this guy?" Andrea asked. Rico would've shuddered if he could. The woman's voice did not promise anything good.

"Eyewitness. Krause picked him up at the slum, said he saw the sons-of-bitches who shot our APC."

"I don't understand. The crew is alive, didn't they see?"

"Andrea… do you know what it's like to sit in an armored vehicle when a high-explosive missile blows up literally in your face?"

"No."

"And you shouldn't find out. The sensations are very… disturbing, to say the least. Hell, the gunner is still stuttering and bumping into walls, and it's been hours."

"…"

"Anyhow, this guy is much worse off than you, it'll take him at least a week in the coffin to recover. Soup's doing his best though, so I think he'll be ready for questioning any moment now."

"You think he had a hand in this?"

"Him? Nah. He's a Diablo ganger. They respect force, so I don't think they would be messing with us. To be honest, I'm pretty damn sure that it's the Cult."

"You're just _making_ sure then."

"I have to, hon. This is different. We're up against _other_ humans this time. Who to protect, and who to ventilate? I don't have any right to be wrong here. Nor do you. Nor does anyone else who's a part of X-COM."

"But you can't be wrong, you're an expe-"

"I'm not superhuman. I make mistakes too. That's why I pestered Steinbach to let you come with me. I shouldn't have…"

"I won't let you down, I promise… where are you going?"

"To get some answers. Rest now, I'll need you back on duty ASAP."

**

* * *

**

"Eat." Krause pushed the full plate to Taylor again to no effect.

The corporal in question shook his head, staring into the table.

"That's an order." Krause said to no effect.

"Don't make it worse, Sarge." Taylor spoke up for the first time since they returned from the slums.

"Don't make me beat sense into you." Krause growled.

Taylor woke up from his stupor and looked directly at Krause with a hint of rising anger. "What the hell, really. Sarge, do you even realize that I lost half of my fucking squad on the second day of active duty? Guys I've been trying to shape up into proper agents for the last few years?"

Krause was not intimidated in the slightest. "Do you think it's any easier for me? I knew Miller since '74 when he joined the Corps. He served under me for a good ten years, Oscar. I trusted him like none other. We went through everything – the Corps, X-COM, those trigger-happy Marsec lunatics in Thresus riots, and saved each other's lives more times than I could count and for what? A closed coffin funeral?"

An uneasy silence descended upon the mess hall as everyone turned to them at the sound of Krause's outburst.

After a few moments, Krause spoke up again, this time quietly. "You're not a military man at heart, Oscar. You're talented, well-trained and could make a good soldier – but you aren't one yet. Almost none of us are. And for the sake of this city – or even the entire humanity – you must become soldiers."

Krause noticed that the other two corporals sitting at the same table were watching him warily. "That applies to you too. Yes, Homburger, even you, your Marsec gig didn't make you a proper soldier either."

Some more time passed in silence as the men returned to their food. Soon, however, another person sat down at the officers table.

Despite only being on duty for a few days, Shuji was already looking exhausted. "We're dumbfounded." he said.

"About what?" Taylor asked with suspicion.

"Petersburg. We ran just about every test we could think of, and… we can't find anything. No parasite, no eggs, no damage to the nervous system, or any traces of molecular control. Nothing!"

"Mind control?"

"That might be an explanation. Unfortunately, he's dead, so we can't check him for any psionic influence."

"Come on, there has to be something!" Krause groaned.

"Brainsuckers." Shuji sighed.

"And you couldn't tell us that earlier because?"

"Because we can't figure out what these aliens actually do! We figured out that it latched onto his head and inserted its proboscis down the throat… but _why_ did it turn him – that we cannot answer. His cardiovascular system is full of dead alien micro-organisms. We found them in the bloodstream of every alien we've examined so far, but there's nothing- I mean, we- argh, we can't figure out what are they!" Shuji stopped his tirade for a second to adjust his glasses. "I'm sure there is a missing link somewhere and that they're somehow related to this alien mind control. Which is why we need every live alien we can get our hands on. Those eggs you found are a good start."

Krause shook his head, tired. "Great. Now we have eggs in the city too? As if, they're going to multiply?"

Shuji tried to smile. "That's another problem. Those humanoid aliens, the Anthropods. They're an enigma as well."

"Explain."

"It's a creature bred for war. Not even a trace of reproductive organs. I'd like to stress that they weren't removed, - they weren't there in the first place. You know what this means?"

"That such a creature couldn't have evolved by itself?"

"Exactly. This alien is made to do only two things – feed and kill. In five days it does plenty of both."

"Five days?"

"Then it dies."

The officers stared at Shuji for a few seconds, confused. "Dies… how?"

"It's not adjusted to our atmosphere, apparently. Although Lafevre claims that they die of old age in a month anyway."

"And Brainsuckers?"

"They live for eight hours. And they can't really do anything other than to jump on people's heads."

Krause folded his arms. "So it's a biological weapon."

Shuji nodded. "Yes, this creature is a weapon. It's fired as a projectile in an organic pod, comes out of hibernation in a matter of seconds, and attacks any suitable host. There's no reproduction or feeding system. Or even a brain."

Zurovec spoke up. "You know… there's… these things bring a whole new meaning to the word "alien".

"Indeed they do."

Several moments passed in silence as Commander Buchard himself joined his staff.

"Alright men, I'll be honest with you – we're almost screwed. We've lost all but a few pieces of our surveillance grid, so we'll have to rely on Megapol and satellites. The worse news – Megapol has apparently been infiltrated."

Homburger chuckled. "The shock troopers in the mall. They're under alien control."

Everyone else stared at him. "Come again, corporal?" Buchard squinted.

He shrugged. "It's pretty easy to figure out. Back in the Iliad Institute, we found a dead Brainsucker with no obvious wounds. Same goes for Sergeant here who found a similar dead Brainsucker but a few moments before Petersburg attacked him."

Shuji sat back and stared absent-mindedly at the ceiling. "It all makes sense. Why was there only one alien found in the Institute, however, if there were so many troops at that mall?"

Buchard spoke up. "Maybe they got rid of the bodies of other Brainsuckers."

"Too many "maybes", Commander." Shuji sighed. "I stress again - we need more live aliens."

"For now, however, we need some answers. We have our undercover operatives back, they'll take over base security for now before I organize them into proper squads. Second, there's going to be a rain soon."

"A rain?"

"Yes. A storm, in fact. And I don't need to remind you that safety regulations and whatnot requires people to stay indoors due to rains being polluted."

"Why won't they shoot down the cloud?" Homburger asked.

Taylor shook his head. "Too expensive for a storm of such a size and the Senate is in a penny-pinching mode right now. Better to just wait it out. Why'd you bring this up, Commander?"

Buchard grinned, clearly expecting this kind of question. "The storm will last for several days. By 11 PM tomorrow, I want all of your squads to be ready for deployment. We're going to pay our pious friends a little visit."

The old man stood up. "I'm going to leave the base for two hours and get some intel. You're the only ones supposed to know it. Krause, you're in charge."

Before anyone could object, he was gone.

* * *

**Wednesday, 8****th**** March – 21:01**

**Sector 5-4D****, East York**

The light of day had almost left Mega-Primus by this time, leaving a sole figure standing on top of the huge, thirty meters wide wall separating the city from the wasteland beyond.

The man wore an unremarkable grey trench coat complete with a fedora hat – clearly trying not to stand out. He kept staring into the distance for what seemed like hours, until one voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"This was once a beautiful place, you know. Forest, parks and all that." The newcomer spoke as he approached the man.

"Stories, Armand. People always talk about how pretty was this or that part of the landscape."

"Actually, no. I was here with my family when I was a kid… damn, when was this… somewhere in the tens I think. Shit, this place was amazing."

"Oh really?" Buchard's interlocutor seemed unimpressed. "Look at this" he pointed to the east, where the ruins of old buildings still towered ominously above the desolate wasteland. "You're implying that this was ever beautiful?"

"That was before all this junk was built, you twit. You're staring at Scarborough… or, what used to be Scarborough. The greenest and leafiest part of Toronto, they said. In fact, if you look there… ah, damn, too dark already – well, you could actually see what used to be Highland Creek. A river."

"Now it's – let me guess - a barely discernible trench full of decades-old trash. Like every other river around here."

"Yup… Sad, isn't it?"

The man shrugged. "I guess it is, but at least we're trying to fix some of it. Anyhow, I didn't call you to talk about nature. I know you have questions."

"Yes. First and foremost, these SWAT troopers you sent to clear out the Institute. Do you know where they are?"

"Nope."

"…wait, what?" Buchard looked directly at the man in disbelief.

"They vanished along with their equipment. We retrieved a corpse at that mall, but still can't track them."

"And you didn't tell me this earlier why?"

Klaus sighed. "Kidnapping of Megapol operatives is an extremely common thing. Every gang does it on a regular basis, since we pay for ransom every time we can't afford a rescue mission… which is _all_ the time."

"Alright. But a whole goddamn SWAT team?"

"Blame the bureaucrats. By the time the news reached me that every single officer was missing, they were already shooting people at random in the shopping malls."

"And… you don't have any idea on where they are. Klaus, seriously…"

"Get used to it." Klaus chuckled. "We're bloody useless. That's what you get when your police force is also a corporation. The higher-ups are more concerned with revenues than keeping order in the city."

Buchard stood silent for a second. "This city is so confusing."

"You bet it is. Basically, in the last year everything has gone wrong somewhere. The Cult is running around crazy, megacorps are suddenly at each other's throats, gangs are practically swimming in cash from Psiclone trade, Marsec is a bit too eager to make our lives even harder, and on top of all that I suddenly find out that Megapol is too bloated and slow to react to all of that. Oh and I forgot the aliens. Paradise on Earth my ass." Klaus crossed his arms as he finished his outburst.

The older man shook his head slowly. "I knew this would happen."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"Get some shit in order. This is a confirmed invasion. I lost three men today to aliens in the slums, and I have all the reasons to believe that there are more. Many, many more. The whole city's probably been infiltrated."

Klaus took a step back. "How the hell did we- you miss all of this?"

"Change of tactics. These… things aren't the Ethereals. Truth be told, even with recovered artifacts we don't know what the hell are they or where did they come from."

"It's been only one day, you expect to have all the-"

"They are _that_ different."

"Well, shit, you still shouldn't expect to know everything by the end of the day."

"I guess you're right, but when every thing recovered leaves your entire research team dumbfounded - that's a cause for concern."

The two remained silent for a few moments before Buchard spoke up again. "Anyhow. Do you have any information on the Cult's operations in the city?"

Klaus chuckled. "Those incredibly original concrete boxes around the city. Registered as Temples of Millennium, Visitors, Doom, Humility, Sanity and the largest of them is called Temple of the Apocalypse."

"Must be very popular with locals."

"Nobody cares, and the Cult buys off or kills the ones who do." Klaus reached into his pocket for a cigarette pack.

"You seem to be awfully calm about it. Come on, you know how insane they are."

"Like I said, they buy everyone off. Donations to this, donations to that, good publicity all around. People are forgetful, you know. Besides, the extent of the Jihad was exaggerated." He lit up the cigarette and turned back to frowning Buchard.

"Anyway. I'm not going to confront them – not in the open – but you can level all these temples for all I care. Word of advice though – start with the smaller ones. Their security are fine Jihad-level zealots, not the rent-a-cops the megacorps use. Attacking Temple of the Apocalypse is practically suicide, the place is a fortress."

"Noted. One more thing, Klaus. I need that body." Buchard waved the smoke away.

"Shit, that guy had family, it won't be that easy."

"Klaus…"

"Ok, fine, I get it, it's vital to the war effort or something. Will be delivered to your base tomorrow, I'll send the Airtrans ID in advance. Anything else?"

Buchard sighed "Stay safe out there."

Klaus smiled. "Right back at ya, old friend."

* * *

**Thursday, 9****th**** March – 15:30**

**X-COM Base One**

He didn't really feel anything, but his awakening was a bit too sudden for his liking.

This time however he could see. The lights on the white ceiling put quite a strain on his unadjusted eyes, and he made an effort to turn away from them.

"Please remain still. The stimulators are taking effect now."

"W-who… is this?" He was surprised that he could actually speak already. "What happened to me?"

"_I am this base's artificial intelligence. You may call me Soup."_

"Soup?" He wished he could scratch his head. An AI? A base? What the hell was going on?

"_I used to be a c__hef when I had an android body. Unfortunately, due to the Senate ban on androids I was forced to vacate it."_

_Oh. Right. An android_, he thought. That made sense, the outlawed machines were quite a frequent sight in the slums.

"So… what happened to me?"

"_You appear to have been hit by a blast wave from an explosion. Your injuries are quite severe but I'm doing my best to heal them. Taking your current state into account, I do not believe that you'd appreciate the details."_

"…whatever you say. Where am I?"

"You're at an X-COM base, kiddo, and for now I will be the one asking questions." Rico remembered that voice from before.

Whoever it was stopped just out of his line of sight.

"Ok. Let's start with the basics. Your name?"

"Saiz… Rico Saiz."

"Soup, run a background check."

"_There are no records in government databases. Megapol records do however confirm an existence of an alleged Diablo member by that name. Wanted for protection racketeering, Psiclone trade and drug trafficking. Also wanted for questioning regarding several unconfirmed cases of gang violence and kidnapping."_

"That's not surprising in the least. So, Mr. Saiz, I'll explain the situation as clearly as possible. You're at an X-COM base, and you saw who shot out APC. So you can remain silent and enjoy the company of Megapol really soon, or you can tell us who did it and be free as soon as you can walk again. If you're especially helpful, there might even be a Mega-Primus citizenship in it for you. Oh, and all charges will be dropped, of course."

"Alright, alright, I'll help… this Megapol stuff is bullshit though, I-"

"I'm not interested in that. Like I said, help us and Megapol won't touch you – not now, not ever." The man cut Rico off. "So, describe in detail what were you doing after the strike team entered the building."

Rico tried to focus. He could actually remember it all, he was sure of it…

"Well, me and my friend were just assembling our shotguns back… you know, with you guys around we thought about high-tailing it outta there as soon as we could." He paused for a bit to catch his breath. "Then we heard gunshots."

"Who was firing? Why?" He could hear his interrogator pacing just a few feet away.

"I think it was you. It came from the upper floors, those slums are like that, you can hear every damn thing. Then…"

Rico paused again. This is when things got blurry.

_A flash… another flash__, Manny pushed me away from... What happened next… I saw it, I know…_

"I saw them." He exhaled.

"Good." The man didn't appear to be surprised in the least. "Describe them."

"Green. I remember… green armor. Strange shade, not military. Too bright. And… purple." Rico stopped again, but continued. "And masks. I don't remember how exactly they looked, but there were red slits on them."

"Excellent." Rico's interlocutor chuckled. "Congratulations, Mr. Saiz. It's not something we didn't know, but your confirmation definitely helped."

"So… I'm free to go?" Rico asked.

"As soon as your wounds are healed, I imagine. It will take you a few days, I think. Just enough time for us to… pass your reward to you."

"_At the present rate it will take approximately one hundred and twelve hours to make a complete recovery."_

"W-wait, just like that? I mean, I didn't even say anything really important!"

"Well I'll be damned, a modest ganger, that's something I don't see every day. Chill out, kid. We don't back down on our promises and to be perfectly honest a citizenship request from X-COM is approved automatically so it's not like it's a lot of effort for us. Any more questions? I haven't got all day."

"No… sir."

"Good."

Rico closed his eyes, pondering the strange situation he found himself in.

* * *

**Thursday, 9****th**** March – 22:32**

**X-COM Base One**

"Suit up, ladies!"

Gaston was already checking his weapon in the corner of the armory when the order arrived, having caught word that an operation was planned. The heavy armor didn't feel so cumbersome after a full day spent getting used to it.

"How many of us going on this one?" Yuri asked Homburger while putting his armor on.

"All of us, save for Seidler. His arm still isn't fixed, but one of FNGs will take over his spot. For now."

"Wow. So, did our supreme overlord and general deity tell us where are we actually going?"

"He's your fucking superior officer, Yakubik, shut it. But to answer your question, yes he did. We're hitting Temple of the Visitors."

"Cultists, eh? Shit." Yuri shook his head.

"Got a problem with that?" Homburger asked in a slightly menacing tone.

"No sir. Just… shit, I signed up to fight aliens. Ah well, I guess alien sympathizers also qualify."

"Let me be clear with you about this, _Yuri_, if you doubt the Commander's decision again, you're going to regret it, and it won't be your paycheck."

"Hey" Yuri raised his palms slightly. "I said I'm ok with this."

"Good. Let's go." Homburger motioned his squad to follow him outside the armory while the rest of the agents just started trickling in.

The agents eventually stopped by the Wolfhound, waiting for the rest to arrive.

"What is the Cult like?" Gaston asked.

Sata turned to him to ask in a surprised tone "Never had run-ins with them before?"

"Nope. Didn't have any at Al Dagor."

"Oh right, it's on the opposite edge of the Frontier. Well, long story short, they are insane lunatics who should be shot as a favor to humanity as a whole. That enough for you?"

"Seems like it's personal." Gaston remarked.

"There's barely a single family here in Mega-Primus that hasn't been touched by their bullshit, mine included, so yes, it's damn personal."

"Hey, cool down!"

Sata took a long, audible breath. "Sorry. But the stories are true. They don't eat babies – _maybe_ they don't, but they're fucking dangerous. So take this raid seriously, we're not going up against rent-a-cops."

After a few more minutes of waiting another four agents approached the APC, their tags identifying them as Squad Delta.

"Where did Krause and Taylor go?" Homburger asked.

Corporal Zurovec pointed over to the Valkyrie. "They're taking an alternate route in. The old man wants to go for a two-front assault - after all we're going for information too."

"Yeah, we'll certainly get a lot of it from these freaks." Homburger snorted.

Sata lifted her mind bender slightly. "Oh, I'll make sure we do."

"Right. Into the Wolfhound, squad."

* * *

Sergeant McNeil was not having a good day.

The day in question being almost over and the resultant zero visibility was the least of his problems.

"_McNeil, can you please fly this thing straight for two minutes? I have pretty hardened folks down here__, but at this rate by the time we get there everyone will have puked on the floor… twice!"_

"This _thing_, Sarge, isn't supposed to be an atmospheric fighter in the first place, and the fact that we carry two goddamn nukes aboard in addition you guys means that I can barely keep it from crashing into the nearest People Tube. I'm good, but I was trained for space combat, not flying the closest thing to a pregnant whale in a goddamn storm!"

"_Who the hell__ had the bright idea to transfer you here then?! Why didn't they send us anyone with actual experience?"_

"That's what I fucking want to know too, and once I find out the guy responsible I'm going to do nasty things to him, his family, and his dog!"

The heated banter between McNeil and the very angry agent in the cargo hold wasn't too high on the list either.

The fact that his poor Valkyrie was being tossed around in the storm was _the_ problem. Elerium-based power was in all respects great and highly efficient, but being based on gravity manipulation was in some cases more of a hindrance than a boon. The alien power source captured and reverse-engineered during the First Alien War was, in fact, an anti-matter reactor that used Elerium-115 to generate powerful gravity waves as well as other forms of energy. The ship's navigational systems would then redirect the gravity waves in order to propel the craft.

This worked well in theory, but there were significant drawbacks. Presence of a celestial body with its own gravity field could put a strain even on an Elerium power source, limiting the speed and maneuverability of the craft in question in the atmosphere. This meant that smaller craft with smaller reactors were slower than the larger ones, not vice versa as it would have been expected from conventional craft. And during the first war, this allowed X-COM to use primitive jet fighters to chase down and destroy alien scout ships. Both sides learned from this mistake, and fusion thrusters became standard issue on human and some alien ships.

The other significant drawback was that most of the power source's output was directed at keeping the craft afloat by negating most of its mass, leaving it extremely susceptible to wind and other atmospheric occurrences.

Fusion thrusters and onboard AI helped compensate for these annoyances, but even they couldn't fully resist the effects of a powerful storm. This meant that McNeil had to apply maximum effort in order to stay on course. And even by his standards, he wasn't doing too well.

"_McNeil, it's pointless to try and stay in the city. Head outside the limits and get above the storm."_

"Sir? But the target?"

"_Will be marked by a targeting beacon. I will disengage urban safety locks when the time comes."_

"Sir, but that's against the regulations!" McNeil was surprised enough that he let the Valkyrie take a sharp dive for a moment.

"_Careful with that thing. And let me worry about the regulations, Sergeant."_

"Yes sir." McNeil quickly set the thrusters to full power, accelerating the craft to ridiculous speeds in mere seconds. Soon the constant shaking and thrashing stopped as the Valkyrie shot out of the clouds and proceeded to hover in one place.

"Excellent. Now just wait for the signal."

* * *

**Friday, 10th March - 00:01**

**Temple of the Visitors**

The rain made it absolutely impossible to see anything beyond a dozen meters, forcing Gaston to rely mostly on his own HUD in order to avoid getting lost.

"Well, I can see why we waited until rain," He heard Homburger mutter on the squad link. "CCTV won't pick us up this way. Not that it matters."

The two squads kept walking in complete silence. Gaston accessed his suit's navigation, which informed him that they were going through the park adjacent to the Temple of the Visitors.

It was certainly good to have such a function built in, since he could barely see past his own nose through the water-covered visor.

Eventually, however, the towering monolith that was the temple appeared from the darkness. The narrow windows were relatively few, although all lights were on.

"Right, this is where we part ways." Zurovec appeared from nowhere. "Ed, you know the drill." Then he proceeded to disappear with his squad.

"Where did they go?" Gaston asked.

"Usual stuff, sabotaging power and communications." Homburger answered, motioning everyone to follow him.

"And us?

"Disabling launch tubes." He answered, pulling a long, black gun from the holster on his thigh.

"A tracker gun?" Gaston was puzzled. Tracer darts were generally used to spy on people or vehicles, and none of it could help the disable the temple's launch tubes.

"Come on, rookie, I'm not going to spoil this, just watch." The corporal chuckled as he jumped over the safety railing that circled the closed launch tube.

Then he proceeded to shoot a multitracker right into the middle of it, returning to the squad a few moments later.

"That's one." He said, motioning everyone to follow him again, this time to the temple itself.

They stopped a few dozen meters away, so that the rain would still conceal them from any onlookers.

"Sata, this one's yours. Aim for the middle of the building, preferably a window."

"Gotcha." She caught the tracker gun Homburger tossed to her, proceeded to aim…

…and drew a few whistles of amazement from Yuri and Gaston as the tracer planted itself squarely on the window Homburger was talking about, giving out a steady ping visible on the squad's HUDs.

She laughed at the reaction "I'm the sniper for a reason, boys."

Homburger chuckled along with her. "Alright boys, here come the fireworks I promised. Sentry One-One, this is Alpha One, markers are in place, I repeat, markers are in place."

"_Copy that, Alpha One, package is en route."_

The lights in the building went out for a few seconds.

"Good, it's on backup power now, they're not getting a word of this out." Homburger said. "Zurovec should be here soon, he'd hate to miss the fireworks… speaking of which…" He pointed at the sky.

Even through the rain the two very bright fireballs could be seen approaching very quickly from above the clouds.

"Oh shit, Retribution missiles? You gotta be…" Yuri exhaled as one of the fireballs changed course abruptly, one going straight down onto the first beacon, while the second one made an elongated turn and headed for the second one.

"Weapons hot, scanner on." Homburger muttered.

The missile headed for the launch tubes was going to strike first, so Gaston watched in awe as it simply shot through the access hatch with a terrible clang and exploded in the hangar below, making the ground shake as flames erupted out of the ruined hatch.

Several smaller explosions could be felt, most likely the ammunition and Elerium stored below went off as well, but Gaston already turned around just in time to see the impact of the second missile.

His visor instantly went dark, the sophisticated alloy reacting to the flash and shielding the wearer's eyes. However, the blast wave still knocked him off his feet and the sound overloaded his audio receptors for a split second.

"Glorious, ain't it?" Homburger yelled, the squad link being the only thing that allowed him to be heard through the roar of the explosion. "On your feet, Gautier, we're going in! Go, go, go, go, go!" He dashed off in the direction of the temple entrance, paying no heed to an enormous smoking hole now comprising a third of the building.

Gaston did shake off his stun quickly enough and followed his commander. The last thing he saw before running inside was a dark yet familiar shape hovering over the temple's roof.

* * *

Well, it certainly took me a long, _long_ while and those who care enough about this story will probably want to stab me with rusty spoons for putting this cliffhanger in.

Anyhow, I'd like to remind you all that Apocalypse was unfinished. There's quite a lot of unused models and art remaining in the game's files, such as the tracker gun I've put in here. Supposedly it was to be used to "tag" corporate CEOs or other entities, who would then be tracked using a device called multitracker. Other stuff in there is also interesting, I'll try to use some of it in the later chapters.

I also tried to get into the geography of the city. Given that the population of Mega-Primus is twice as small as that of today's Toronto and is mostly concentrated in large apartment blocks, I'd estimate that it occupies roughly the same area as Old Toronto along with some bits of York and East York. Explaining how Elerium-based propulsion works was a lot of fun, but just in case you want to know, I suck at physics. A lot.

Anyway, the next chapter will deal with every Apocalypse player's favorite pastime - raiding Cult temples for fun, profit and HE missiles to the face. I got exams coming up so it will probably take me a long time to write, but I'm not abandoning this story.


	7. Old Hatreds

**Chapter 7: Old Hatreds**

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 00:09**

**Temple of the Visitors**

The normally dim lights were now also constantly flickering, signaling that the building's emergency power supply was about to fail.

_As if this place couldn't get any creepier already_ Gaston thought. Truly, the temple was an odd and unnerving sight to outsiders. The ceiling, the floor and the walls were composed of one and the same kind of polished marble that reflected the lights over and over again, with the resulting impression making it seems as if one was suspended in the middle of an endless void. The blood-red carpet on the floor and a narrow strip of textile wallpaper of the same shade on the walls were the only things that looked material in this strange building.

A few moments later Gaston realized that this was exactly the point. The temple was built to project a likeness of outer space – the cold, dark space where the Cult kept searching for its alien masters.

"Yakubik, got anything on scanner?" Homburger looked behind the receptionist's desk. Judging by his lack of reaction, there was nobody there.

"Lots of interference, sir, I still wonder how come the whole place did not just collapse. The screen is just white and hell if I know if it's debris or survivors."

"They still know their shit when it comes to building a nigh impregnable fortress." Homburger remarked.

"The scanner being as useless as ever is not a surprise either." Sata chuckled.

"So where to now, sir?" Gaston asked.

"I think both these doors lead to the same place." Homburger pointed at the two sets of automatic doors in the wall opposite to the entrance. "Probably some kind of sermon hall. If there's a first line of defense, I'd mount it there."

He approached one of the doors. When it failed to open, he waved his hand in front of it. "Hm, looks like the motion sensors are dead. Yakubik, see if you can find the manual switch."

"Already done." Yakubik opened a small, barely noticeable panel on the wall next to the side of the door. A suitable precaution for just such an occasion.

"Alright. Yamanaka, get to that switch. Stack up on the side of the door. Yakubik, you're first in. Gautier second. On my mark… three… two… one… go!"

Sata flipped the manual switch, causing the doors to open instantly.

"Woah shit!" Gaston stumbled as something large and loud flew right through the open doorway. A teeth-rattling explosion that followed a split second later confirmed Gaston's guess that the object in question was a missile.

Ultimately he was forced to silence the analytical side of his mind for now as he charged inside after Yuri.

He immediately saw the cultists taking cover behind rows of plastic pews. Unfortunately for them, the pews provided poor cover. A blood-curling scream quickly turned into a gargle as the unlucky missile launcher operator's chest was perforated by Yuri's rifle.

The remaining cultists were momentarily distracted by the sight of their comrade crashing through two rows of pews, and Gaston used the distraction to take cover behind a large pillar some distance away from the door. Yuri joined him in a second.

The cultists were not easily broken and Gaston's heart skipped a beat as a hail of bullets bore deep into the column he was hiding behind.

"I'm going in."

The gunfire was rather abruptly cut short by the bark of Homburger's autocannon. The sheer devastation unleashed by the weapon designed to disable armored vehicles could easily put the preceding part of the firefight to shame. At least two enemies dropped down dead immediately.

"Gautier, Yakubik – runners!"

The cultists finally realized their mistake and made an effort to dash for the columns similar to the one Gaston and Yuri were behind. Two or three of them, quite different from the others in the sense that they wore military light body armor and full helmets, attempted to take Homburger down.

The corporal – a man of significant size – did not even flinch as the first few bullets bounced off his armor, instead directing the flow of destruction in his hands at the upstarts. A few loud and very nasty-sounding cracks could be heard in a rapid succession even through all the gunfire as the cultist's ballistic vest simply shattered into pieces, with his torso exploding into a cloud of bloody vapor mere moments later. Another guard slowly fell flat on his stomach, with the small hole in his forehead still sizzling. The last adversary was unceremoniously cut down by Yuri, who chose the right moment to emerge from cover.

That still left the five lesser cultists. The sight of an armored juggernaut shrugging off their gunfire and dispensing twice as much in return was too much for them to bear, and panic quickly set in. Rather than stay in cover, they attempted to run to the other exit from the hall.

Needless to say, there were promptly shot in the back, with the last of them being quite literally smashed into a wall by Gaston's burst. The rookie shuddered in disgust as he watched the cultist slowly slide down the wall, leaving a large bloody trail on it.

"Clear!"

"_Squads Bravo, Delta, Charlie – Alpha has alie… enemy contact. First floor, eleven tangos. All down."_

"_This is Delta One. Hold position, Alpha, reinforcements inbound."_

Gaston looked around. The room they were in was once a sermon hall… until X-COM came around, that is. If what he heard about the raid's objective was right, then the building would be a smoking ruin by the time they left.

"They had some impressive firepower." He saw Yuri pick up a large, revolver-styled handgun. After stressing his memory for a bit, he recognized it as Megapol PA-22 plasma gun – an expensive, deadly and extremely rare weapon that was produced on a very small scale, mostly for private collections. The fact that it was practically banned for the grievous and almost always lethal injuries it could cause did not help its production run at all.

The same could not be said about its actual usage. Generally, every militia, army unit or PMC worth a damn could not possibly care less about NWC regulations.

X-COM always followed the "ends justify the means" philosophy, so Yuri obviously did not think twice before shoving the weapon into the empty holster on his thigh.

"Too bad they did not know how to use it." Gaston said. While Homburger was studying the dead body of one of the elite guards, Gaston helped himself to a missile launcher dropped by the first cultist to go down.

This technological marvel of Marsec origin was the ultimate in man-portable destruction. Miniaturization and adoption of alien blaster bomb and disruptor pulse launcher technology finally allowed Marsec to combine the versatility of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and the potency of an anti-tank guided missile in one weapon.

"Looks like this idiot forgot to switch the guidance system on." Gaston shrugged as he slung the weapon over his back. The smart clamp system recognized the weapon in question, making sure that it would be firmly fixed on the user's back until he needed it. The cultist still had two missiles on him, so Gaston took them as well.

A loud sound of several people running made the squad train their weapons at the door they just came out of. Fortunately, it was only Delta.

"Wow, you guys did all this?" One of Zurovec's troops spoke up, Gaston's HUD immediately identifying him as Private Ernesto Achuleta.

"…why, what's the matter?" Homburger and the rest of his squad were puzzled.

"Possibly the fact that you took out a dozen tangos without taking even a scratch." Zurovec pointed out. "Nicely done."

"I just wish it was aliens instead." Yuri sighed. "This is the first time we fought other humans."

"_Incorrect, Private. X-COM has a very long and bloody history. It's not exactly public knowledge, but I'd recommend spending some time in the archives after this mission. It will shed a lot of light on what we're doing here today."_ Buchard's voice came in. _"Now move up. We've encountered some resistance upstairs. It seems that they are diverting their… remaining security forces."_

_Did I just hear gunfire?_ Gaston looked around.

"Alright then. Let's move. Yakubik, take point. Gautier, behind him." Homburger reloaded his autocannon and spun the barrels slightly. The squad finally left the hall, moving into yet another hallway, this one leading to several private rooms and an elevator at the end. Squad Delta followed them shortly.

"Check those rooms. If there's anyone hiding in there, shoot them." Homburger ordered.

"Civilians, sir?" Yuri asked.

"There are no civilians here. There aren't going to be any survivors, either." The corporal cut off angrily.

"Sir, I do not like the way you think." Apparently, Yuri wasn't going to drop the matter.

"If it bothers you so much, Yakubik, you can lodge a formal complaint after the mission. For now, follow the orders and shoot every son-of-a-bitch you see. You can blame their undoubtedly well-deserved deaths on me if it makes you feel better. Now check that goddamn room."

Yuri just sighed and approached one of the doors. When it didn't open, he simply he kicked it in, only to freeze in the doorway afterwards.

"Sweet mother of mercy."

"What? What's in there?" Gaston peered over Yuri's shoulder and immediately regretted it. A huge chunk of the concrete ceiling collapsed during the missile attack, falling right on top of the two unlucky cultists beneath it. The sigh of a crushed body with its innards spilling out was so disturbing that Gaston chose to back away immediately and focus on fighting the coming nausea.

With the corner of his eye he noticed Yuri carefully approach one of the cultists and pull a small object out of his arm.

"Psiclone. He probably didn't even notice that he died." Yuri remarked.

"Good for him." Homburger's voice was solemn for once. "Hold on to this thing. It may come in handy."

Searching the other rooms yielded a few more Psiclones.

"Wonder if these are necessary for reaching complete enlightenment?" If Sata could make that remark any more venomous, it would burn right through her faceplate, Gaston thought.

"Hm." The corporal commented. "Looks like it's mostly empty."

"It's middle of the night. Shouldn't be anyone except security left." Zurovec replied. "The only way to go now is up."

"Are you sure there's nobody below us? In the hangar?" Homburger asked.

Zurovec shook his head. "It's a complete mess down there. They must've stored enough munitions for a whole fleet in there." As if confirming his words, a violent explosion rattled the building. "See? It's still cooking off. Whoever had the bad luck to be there is vaporized, suffocated or burnt to a crisp. Take your pick."

Eventually, the troops arrived at the elevator.

"Wait, it's a grav lift? Of this size?" Gaston peered up the elevator shaft to see that the grav lift did in fact go to the top of the building. "But… that's so… wasteful."

"Yeah, this little cult has a lot more money than it can spend, it seems." Yuri added.

All of a sudden, the power cut out completely. Startled by the darkness, Gaston stumbled away from the lift just in time to hear something land with a sickening crunch right where he was standing a few seconds ago.

"Woah!" He barely regained his balance as Homburger turned on the searchlight in his helmet to reveal that the object in question was a dead cultist.

The power came back on, and the body awkwardly floated up a bit along with numerous droplets of rain from the outside, suspended in mid-air.

The agents stared at the macabre sight for a few seconds in complete silence before the power cut out yet again.

"Alright. Unless any of you are feeling suicidal today, we're taking the stairs." Homburger said.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 00:37 (20:37 local time)**

**Zander Air Force Base, Cydonia, Mars**

Supreme Commander Jens Steinbach sighed and cast a glance at the window. The sandstorm outside kept howling and battering on the facility's walls for days and showed no signs of relenting.

Cydonia was one of the few remaining deserts on Mars, most others having been replaced by rapidly-spreading grasslands. It was also the largest, owing to the fact that all terraforming operations within a five hundred kilometer radius of the base were strictly prohibited.

There was a reason for all this – Zander AFB was built right on top of the ruins of the alien base destroyed by X-COM strike teams in 1999. The raid was such a success that surviving Ethereal forces abandoned both the planet and the entire system faster than anyone could have expected. For years, the site was considered safe until the mysterious disappearance of an exploration ship, the UGS Patton in the orbit of the planet in 2062.

The official version was that the Patton suffered a drive failure and crashed into the planet. A huge crater occupying roughly half of what used to be Cydonia base supported that version.

X-COM and a few select others, however, knew that shortly before all contact with the Patton was lost, a massive power surge was detected at the site of the base. The absence of any debris at the site of the explosion raised a lot of questions, and during the colonization of Mars the entire Cydonia area was declared quarantined for security purposes.

Right now, however, the mystery of the Patton was the last thing on Steinbach's mind. There were far more pressing matters to attend to.

He sat back in his chair and began running the events of the past few months through his mind again. Mysterious portals on Earth – Earth of all places! Past every line of defense the NWC and X-COM had. Sure, there was Mars Fleet, but NWC would never risk leaving what essentially amounted to humanity's last stronghold unguarded even for an hour. Frontier? X-COM's terribly outnumbered navy is tied down, trying to untangle the mess of corporations, pirates and local independence movements that are constantly at each other's throats. Marsec? Asking them for aid would be asking for trouble. The second largest megacorp (first one would be Transtellar, but at least it didn't have its own private army) began flexing its political and military muscles a bit too often lately. Fortunately, they were still kept in check through means best left unknown to the general public.

Steinbach shivered as he thought about the very precarious position humanity was in. The future was not yet secure. The official figures of the casualties of the T'leth disaster were so huge that not even NWC could cover them up. _Nine billion_ people died during the first decade after the war's end, leaving entire continents virtually uninhabited. Sadly, only the richest nations like the NAA and the Eurasian Hegemony could afford to keep their population safe through whatever means at their disposal and even then it wasn't enough. According to the latest estimates humanity was pushed back to one and a half billion mark and had only recently begun climbing up again. About half of that number was on Mars, the other half was evenly split between those stranded in the few remaining hospitable regions of Earth and those scattered among the colonies in the Frontier.

For a few especially dark years it seemed as if the Ethereals won even in defeat and that the human race was sentenced to slow, agonizing death. However, that was a thing of the past, and Steinbach had to focus on the present.

Said "present" consisted of finding something, _someone_ to help Buchard defend a lifeless, depleted graveyard planet that was once home to humanity. In all respects Earth was a liability that should have been forgotten the moment the last human would be uplifted from its surface, but mankind was never known for being pragmatic. It was at that point that everyone, from farmer to corporate CEO fully grasped the concept of what they were leaving behind. They never realized what they had lost, until they had lost it.

And so, man left Earth… but vowed to never abandon it.

Evacuation was not an option. Surrender was not an option. Idleness was not an option.

Steinbach needed to commit more resources to the fight, and he had them right here.

"Are we gonna sit here and watch you stare at the window all day?" The booming voice returned Steinbach back to the real world.

"Colonel, your lack of respect for subordination is-" Steinbach started to reply.

"Oh spare me the lecture, you care about this crap about as much as I do." The huge man with an equally huge, fiery red beard that probably violated every X-COM regulation related to facial hair _and_ common decency interrupted him again.

Steinbach rolled his eyes. "You're insufferable, Russell."

The man laughed out so loud that the Supreme Commander was deafened for a second. "And that's why you love me. So, whatcha got for us? It better be important."

"I'm canceling your current mission. You're not going back to the Frontier." The Commander sat back to study the reaction of Russel's team.

The colonel himself and four other attendees barely raised an eyebrow. However, the jittery, nervous-looking man with a ridiculous handlebar mustache (probably violating fewer regulations than Russell's beard but violating everyone's tender aesthetic tastes instead, Steinbach thought) quite literally dropped his jaw.

Satisfied with this minor victory, Steinbach continued. "You're being assigned to Section Commander's Buchard unit on Earth."

This time he drew a whistle of surprise from Russell. "What did we do to deserve that? Was it that bar brawl at Xanadu Station? Come on, they started it first!"

Steinbach groaned. "Yes, a team of six elite X-COM operatives came under vicious attack by twenty drunken dock workers of whom only three got away without getting any limbs broken. As much as I'd like to assign you all to some God-forsaken asteroid, I'll have to do that some other time."

"So why are we assigned to that backwater hole again? And wait, you said Buchard is in there?" Russell continued.

"The old man just won't retire already. Eighty years old and still pretending he's twenty." The mustached man interjected.

"Shut your trap, Weasel. You know well that Buchard will retire only when he's dead." The confident-looking Arab by the window said.

"Hey, up yours, Burnout, I-ow!" Weasel nearly fell off his chair, having received a smack on the back of his head from Russell, prompting a quiet chuckle from a normally indifferent Japanese man of diminutive stature sitting next to him.

"Quiet down, both of you. That means you too, Goblin." Russell turned back to Steinbach. 'Sorry about that, chief. Now, what's in there?"

Steinbach made a small dramatic pause before dropping the bomb. "A confirmed alien invasion."

This time everyone's jaws dropped, except for the tall, pale and extremely unnerving fellow by the door who seemingly never changed his facial expression at all. But even he changed his posture slightly, giving away his agitation with the news.

The only other person to notice this was a bespectacled man with a goatee (Steinbach thought not for the first time that violating facial hair regulations ran deep in the squad) who studied his squadmate with intense interest before finally saying "Well I'll be damned, you actually got Silencer's attention."

"That's definitely something that happens once in never, Hacksaw, but please stop interrupting the Commander." Russell seemingly couldn't keep his squad quiet for one minute.

"Of course sir, my apologies."

"Now then" Steinbach continued, "Buchard has already engaged the invaders several times and it is obvious that without reinforcements he won't last long."

"Who has he got there?" Russell suddenly became serious.

"Twelve agents on active duty. Mostly rookies. He lost three yesterday and his surveillance grid has been compromised due to active sabotage by Cult of Sirius."

"Shit. Scale of their presence in the city?"

"Unknown. Our estimate is at several hundred militants... minimum. Possibly something worse, they have a foothold in the city almost as large as on the entirety of Mars."

"And… it's just twelve agents. And three of them are dead already. What. The. Fuck."

"You know that we are not the Pacifier Corps, right?" Steinbach decided to cut off the colonel.

"Yeah yeah, our strength is not in numbers, heard that one before. But twelve agents? The Cult can simply throw hats at them till they're buried. And that's not even factoring in the aliens." Russell remained unamused. "Are they hidden at least?"

Steinbach nodded. "The location of the base is a secret – for now, at least."

"You know it won't stay that way for long."

"Correct. The place is a fortress and should be protected enough but… look, Mark, I'm not asking you to go there and win the war by yourself. We may be stretched thin, but we're not helpless, I will get some backup for you, I- we just need some time. You're the best we have, you were trained for this, hell, your entire team is worth more to me than that entire city. And I need you there holding Buchard's unit together until we're prepared for war. Or at least until GSC figures out a way to send a Nova bomb through those damn gates."

"You know, we do kind of realize that this isn't a penalty assignment by now." For the first time, Russell did not sound snide even if his remark was.

"Information on the aliens." The tall man, referred to earlier as Silencer had a strange way of asking questions.

"Right. They are not the Ethereals. Their science team sent some of their preliminary reports yesterday."

"Technology. Tactics. Extent of the invasion." Silencer didn't have much in the way of manners, but he was valued for a different set of skills anyway. His nickname did not leave a lot of room for interpretation as to what could that be, either.

Steinbach scanned the datapad in front of him. "We haven't got much. They seem to have mastered dimensional travel."

"Is that bad?" Weasel spoke up.

"Yes, corporal Andrews, it is bad. In layman's terms, GSC understands dimensional travel only at theoretical level – barely, I might add - and is decades away from putting that knowledge to any practical use. Our new alien friends however show unbelievable mastery of it. They even based their weaponry on it. According to the field report I got yesterday, it's… destructive, to say the least."

"Destructive, you say…" Russell flashed an evil grin, prompting alarmed looks from his entire squad, except Silencer of course.

Steinbach knew their cause for concern. Russell was originally trained as a demolitions expert, and he was good at this job – way too good sometimes. Fortunately, not even the most paranoid conspiracy theorists could make the connection between X-COM and the most famous (and utterly devastating) bombings of seemingly unrelated targets during the past two decades.

And now he was about to be set loose in a densely packed urban environment. That couldn't possibly end well.

Steinbach chose to continue speaking rather than allowing this increasingly awkward pause last any longer.

"We do not have sufficient information on their intentions and scale of their infiltration of the city. This mission is highly classified and must stay that way for as long as possible."

"From what I see," Russell said while peering into Steinbach's datapad, "these dimensional gates are hanging right there in plain sight. UFOs appear regularly and fly all over the damn city. How do you cover that up?"

"They're written off as harmless. For now. UFOs generally appear at night, when they do so during the day they are non-hostile unless provoked. Buchard's fleet shot down some a few days ago."

"Can't be all that bad then." Russell relaxed in his chair.

"They were later confirmed to be unmanned scouts." Steinbach added. "And earlier reports did in fact say that these are the _smallest_ things to come out of these gates. The only thing that is preventing a full-blown panic is that they don't attack openly. There's just the regular panic."

"Hm, I see." Hacksaw interjected. "Citizens are abandoning the city en masse and there is no telling if they could be under alien control of some kind. While quarantining the city would require admitting that an invasion is in fact underway. Cue NWC paper-pushers shitting their pants."

"Yes, that is in fact what I mean. But enough talk. You'll receive the full version of everything we know so far. I want you to be ready to depart to Earth in four standard hours. Remember to check out the armory. I've stocked it with some top-of-the-line equipment in preparation for your arrival."

"How are we going to get there?" Weasel asked, the prospect of actual action seemingly having calmed him down somewhat.

For the first time in days, Steinbach smiled as he noticed his newest acquisition descending into one of the base's launch tubes even through the sandstorm. "Just in time… and it's something with more guns than the entirety of the Kabron Pirates."

* * *

**Temple of the Visitors**

The cultist took a few steps forward, each slower than the previous one, before collapsing at Homburger's feet and expiring mere moments after.

Gaston flinched as the corporal aimed his autocannon at the dead cultist's head. After a tense few moments, Homburger chose to simply kick the body away.

The two squads kept their weapons trained at every nook and cranny they could make out during the flashes of light, but so far this mortally wounded man was the only living enemy they met since the shootout in the sermon hall.

"We picked the right time to attack." Zurovec commented. "Nobody but security and the occasional janitor. Might be that we got them all already."

There was clear logic in his claims. The cult did not have much of a reason to maintain a large security force at a relatively minor temple.

Thinking along this direction, Gaston relaxed for a second, staying a bit behind the group to better examine the dead cultist, only to be interrupted by a deranged scream from one of the side rooms.

"Die, unbelievers!" was the only warning before another missile came flying their way.

"Hit the deck!" Homburger bellowed as the agents ducked for whatever little cover the bare hallways afforded.

Gaston saw the missile coming for him of all people and leaped backwards, intent on landing on his back. The trick worked, the missile initially followed him as he jumped, but then it was too late for it to change course again.

Then two things went wrong. First, Gaston realized that he still had a missile launcher on his back, and it wasn't going to make his fall easy. Second, the missile did not overshoot him like he hoped it would – it hit the ceiling instead.

Whatever unpleasant sensations he could've received from landing on a large metal tube were now amplified by the fact that the blast wave practically smashed him into the floor. Armor or not, a concussion at this range was practically guaranteed.

The world started spinning around him and for a second Gaston was afraid he might actually pass out. But even in his confused state he knew that doing it in the middle of a Temple of Sirius was a bad idea, and probably the last one he would ever have.

He heard gunfire, yet it seemed… distant?

"Alpha squad, sitrep!"

"I'm up!" Sata replied first.

"I'm up!" Yuri came in second.

"I… ugh." Gaston tried to report, but had a bit of difficulty grasping words at the moment.

"Alpha Four is down! Yakubik, drag him into… where the hell?"

"Return fire!" Zurovec's voice chimed in.

Gaston finally rolled over on his stomach, his senses coming back to him.

"What the shit, where's Gautier? Gautier? Rookie? Where the hell are you?"

"I'm a… I'm…" Gaston started to reply as he noticed a pair of green boots next to him. "Oh shit…"

"He's on the other side of that pile, we can't reach him!" Yuri said with alarm in his voice.

_Pile? What pile?_ Gaston thought as one of the boots in front of him kicked his rifle away.

"Bitch!" was the only coherent response the agent mustered as he simply reached forward, grabbed the offender's ankle with his left hand and pulled it.

Not expecting this from a dazed and downed trooper, the cultist fell on his back. Gaston quickly seized his knee with his other hand and yanked the ankle upwards, grinning as a snap followed by a scream could be heard.

Convinced that the cultist was too preoccupied with his newly-broken leg, Gaston crawled over to his rifle. The dizziness had almost faded by now, and after a few failed attempts he managed to finally stand up.

The cultists tried to reach for his own weapon, which he dropped during Gaston's sudden counterattack. A single shot to the head put an end to that. After scanning the area and seeing no more immediate threats in his vicinity, Gaston finally remembered what the frantic chatter in the background was about.

"Corporal, I'm up, had to fight off a tango here… what the…" Gaston turned around to where Homburger was last seen, but the explosion evidently caused the ceiling to collapse, forming an impenetrable pile of rubble between him and the rest of the squad. "Corporal, I'm separated from the rest of you."

"_Damn it."_ Homburger made every effort to remain calm. _"Quickly, use the other staircase. Go up as far as you can, you'll run into Bravo and Charlie eventually."_

"_Sir, the scanner is picking something up on his side…_" Yuri said.

"_Ah, shit, they know you're there! Move it, Gautier! Come on, go!"_

He didn't have to say it twice, as Gaston was already bolting for the stairs.

As much as the rookie hated to admit it, he was scared more than ever. He was separated from the rest of his squad, and he had no idea where he was going. Not to mention the constantly flashing lights that wreaked havoc upon his night vision, forcing him to either give away his position with the searchlight or stumble around in the darkness.

"You will not lay your hands upon the prelate, unbeliever!" The cultist's religious drivel gave Gaston the warning he needed to take cover in time to avoid the incoming gunfire.

"Brothers, I have him cornered! Fire!" the cultist kept ranting at the top of his lungs, and not for the first time Gaston felt grateful to his drill instructors for helping him develop his selective hearing skills. This in turn allowed him to separate the actually useful bits of information from the mind-numbing stream of zealous rants that came from the cultists' direction.

Safe in cover, the agent attempted to concentrate on figuring out how many adversaries was he up against. A few careful peeks later he placed their number at about nine. Way more than he could handle. Even with his armor and superior training he was outnumbered and outgunned to the point where cultists could keep him pinned constantly while they advanced to his cover.

"Our brothers come to our assistance! Let us finish off the unbeliever!"

And they _still_ had reinforcements? How much security did this building have, anyway?

Gaston had to think quickly. The only wait of here was past the cultists. They were bound to get reinforcements soon and then he'd simply be swarmed. So he had to get past them…

An answer presented itself rather quickly as he reached for the missile launcher on his back. All he needed now was the right moment.

Finally, a lull in the enemy gunfire appeared as the cultists paused to reload and creep forward to Gaston's position.

The agent stepped out, steeled himself in front of the many, _many_ weapons that were aimed at him, locked on to the target closest to the middle… and pulled the trigger.

It felt glorious when the missile left the launcher with a resounding "whoosh". The enemy didn't have X-COM's reaction times, so the unlucky target could only stand and watch as the missile blew him to gory, flaming bits. The rest managed to avoid most of the blast, but even they were stunned momentarily.

Using this momentary distraction, Gaston let loose his second surprise – an armed smoke grenade that detonated as it touched the floor. As soon as the smoke covered the entire corridor, Gaston sprinted forward, ignoring the sporadic gunfire. He bumped into – or rather violently crashed into someone, considering his armor and all – on his way out.

"The unbeliever is getting away, brothers! Avenge our own!" The cultist clearly needed to pick up a few lessons in effective communication, Gaston thought as the smoke in front of him began to clear. Now that he was sure he wasn't going to bump into someone again, he started reloading the launcher – fortunately, the process was easy enough to go through with even while running.

"Contact! Open up!" The unusually concise manner of relaying orders led Gaston to realize that the new arrivals from one of the side corridors were the Cult's more experienced troops.

The rookie made one final dash for the doorway in front of him, already formulating a plan on how to throw off his pursuers. His heart sank when he heard shots behind him. A few bullets chipped the marble around him, a few more bounced off his armor.

Just as he crossed behind the wall, one lucky shot managed to penetrate the plating and lodge itself in his left shoulder.

"Merde!" Gaston gasped in his native French as the force of impact nearly threw him off his feet, making him drop his missile launcher. It would take him a few moments to actually feel the pain, and he used those to reach for the manual controls and shut the door in front of him.

Normally the cultists would just reopen the door from their side, but Gaston staggered away from it and let loose his second and final missile. The explosion did not cause much destruction, but undoubtedly jammed the door.

Breathing heavily, Gaston collapsed with his back against the wall and activated the medi-kit. After a few moments, the pain subsided, replaced by a numbness in his left arm. He would need to visit the medical bay once back home, but for now he was out of danger.

"_Alpha squad, reporting all clear. Proceeding to rendezvous point. We'll have to take a detour."_

"_Roger that, Alpha. We're currently holding position near the prelate's chambers, they just stopped coming. Are you guys ok there? We got pinned here but we can push forward to you."_

"_We lost Alpha Four, Delta Three is injured, but otherwise we're fine."_

Gaston decided to cut in. "This is Alpha Four. I had about fifteen cultists in pursuit, but I think I lost them. Took one in the shoulder, but I'm okay. Coming up to rendezvous with Bravo."

"_Gautier? You're alive? Oh thank fucking God."_ Homburger did not even attempt to hide his relief._ "Where are the hostiles now?"_

"I'm not sure, sir. I jammed the door behind me and…" Gaston looked at the massive, engraved doors in the distance. "I think I'm at the… prelate's chambers, was it?"

"_Right."_ Zurovec's voice appeared. _"They are going to take the long way to the chambers. We and Alpha can hit them in the back."_

Gaston watched with interest as Zurovec's hastily drawn plan appeared on his HUD. Then another set of red crosses appeared as Krause spoke up.

"_We'll meet them up front. They'll be caught between us so we can cut them down in a matter of seconds."_

"_Alpha Four, stay put. Or rather, find cover and then stay put."_ Homburger's final order came in.

_Find cover? Where?_ Gaston mused, as the corridor was pretty much bare, except for the doors to the prelate's chambers.

Left with no other choice, Gaston first slung the empty missile launcher on his back, before reaching for his rifle. Armed and ready to face the enemy once again, he slowly approached the doors. The audio sensors in his helmet picked up some sort of conversation behind it.

"…last time I'm telling you, Felker, we can't send any help. Pray for deliverance and know that your death will not be in vain. X-COM will not get away with this."

"But, my lady, these unbelievers, they are trampling upon our holy ground, desecrating our…"

"I don't know what they're after, but they're not going to find it in your temple. You know what you must do. Do not fail the Benefactors, Felker."

"I… I understand, my lady. They will not take me alive."

_Oh yes we will_ Gaston thought as he barged inside the chambers without considering the consequences.

Fortunately for him, inside was only a middle-aged, short man dressed in flowing white robes who was reaching for a lawpistol on his desk.

Without second thought, Gaston shot him in the arm, wishing he had brought his stun grapple along for this one.

Howling in pain, the man recoiled away from the desk, before losing his footing and collapsing.

"Nice shot, puppet." Gaston looked around, looking for the source of the voice, before realizing that it was coming from a large screen mounted on the wall behind the desk.

The screen in turn depicted a rather attractive young woman. Only a few wrinkles by the eyes betrayed the fact that she was a lot older than she looked.

The woman brushed aside a strand of blond hair before continuing. "Once again, X-COM proudly steps in to wreak havoc for its own, mostly idiotic reasons. Congratulations. You have wrecked a temple, murdered dozens of devoted worshippers and will likely loot everything that isn't nailed down to the floor. So much for stalwart defenders of humanity. What have you got to say about that, eh, puppet?"

"If you're going to spout your pseudo-religious nonsense, Kate, you could at least have some decency to pick on someone your own size. Although few will match the size of your lying tongue." Another new voice, heavily distorted by a vocoder, came in. Gaston turned around, aiming his rifle at the arrival – who turned out to be the X-COM agent replacing Eric Seidler in Bravo squad. What was more peculiar is that Gaston's HUD identified him only by his callsign – "Neptune".

"And who the hell are you supposed to be, grunt?" The woman replied, visibly irritated.

The agent simply laughed as he lifted his faceplate.

"Your worst nightmare, Kate." Armand Buchard said. "It's been a while since I had fun with your lot."

"Ah. The famous Command Buchard." The woman continued in an impassive voice, although her face was red with anger. "Came to abduct more little girls?"

Buchard only grinned. "That little girl has a bigger body count than me, honey. I couldn't possibly let her best the old man. This is not why I'm here, though."

The blonde scoffed. "Typical X-COM. Twisting other people for your own desires."

"You should worship us for that, considering how often your alien friends do it." The commander retorted.

"We won't let this slide, murderer. We got powerful friends. We got Reis. We got-"

"Shut the hell up already, Thryn. Your drivel did not impress me in the slightest in the thirties, you cannot possibly fathom how much fuck I do not give about it now. Point is, for every attack on my men like what you did near Bakunin Block I will level another one of your nests."

"You want to intimidate us, you old freak? You have no idea who you're messing with." The cultist laughed.

"Quite the contrary, I'm the only one who knows what it takes to stop you. And you can be damn sure that I will repeat the lesson. Time and time again."

"What makes you think you can get away with bombing buildings in the middle of the city? This will be all over the headlines tomorrow." The woman calmed down a bit, her voice becoming snide.

Buchard smiled as he crossed his arms. "My men are already setting the demo charges. In an hour this place will be a huge pile of rubble. And the only thing Megapol will find will be this." He produced a small pendant from his belt pouch, shaped like a red capital letter "I" with two silver skulls on its sides. "We were never gone, you know."

"You motherf-" The previous outbursts were benign compared to the expression of rage Thryn adopted at the sight of the pendant.

Buchard was obviously satisfied at the reaction as he walked to the table and shut down the link. "That should give her a few good nights of sleep" he said, turning to face Gaston, who was still standing there, unsure as to what just happened. "Sorry you had to witness this shit flinging contest, rookie. I suppose you have questions, eh? Well, ask away."

"Who was she? And what's this?" Gaston pointed at the pendant.

"Her name is Kate Thryn, she is the apparent leader and spokesperson of the Cult of Sirius for the past twenty-five years or so, ever since Reis Markus disappeared. As for this little thing – it's a memento from my not quite glorious youth. Mark of the Inquisitor. You heard about the Jihad, right?"

"Yes, but I thought the Inquisitors were wiped out… and you said "we were never gone", so that means…?"

"Yup. I was with the Inquisitors, but fortunately the S.O.R.E.S.O. recruited me just before the Jihad ended, so I avoided the fate of most of my comrades."

Gaston could only stand and watch as Buchard continued. "I lied to her though. The Inquisitors never resurfaced as a cohesive organization again. This was just to throw her off our trail."

Finally, the rookie nodded. "So… you just spread this rumor of Inquisitors resurfacing to…"

Buchard nodded. "To lead the Cult on a wild goose chase while they look for traitors in their own ranks and Inquisitor cells in the city. We were quite adept at subterfuge, which is why the Cult remains convinced that they never truly stamped us out. In fact, this is not the first such false flag operation, but you don't need to know that. Not yet, at least."

Gaston nodded in return, understanding that Buchard already disclosed a lot more than a private was supposed to know anyway. "Yes sir. What do we do with this guy?" He pointed at the prelate…

…who spent the last few minutes crawling to the shattered window. Before Gaston or Buchard could react, he pushed himself over the edge, falling to his death.

"Ah shit, we could've taken him in for questioning." Buchard sighed, undisturbed at all. "Well, we have what we came for anyway. Come on. Let's take everything worth taking and then blow this place to bits."

The rookie nodded. This was a strange day for him, full of trials and revelations.

But who said anything about life in X-COM being easy?

* * *

**Excerpt from Hypernews Network Daily Feature, "Mars Fleet Fully Operational", dated February 2082**

Today was a grand day at Transtellar Orbital Shipyard Three as the final ship of the newly-formed Mars Fleet, a _Patton VI_-class cruiser _Ajax_ finally joined its nineteen sister ships and the five majestic _Zhukov_-class battleships in their noble task of safeguarding Mars from any sort of incursion, alien or otherwise.

Although proceeding slowly since 2074 due to a constant lack of funds that were being diverted to the Mega-Primus project, the project was completed only two years behind the original schedule. Unfortunately, the Admiralty Board did not disclose whether there are plans to revisit the concept of a separate Earth Fleet, abandoned a decade ago due to above-mentioned scarcity of resources. Transtellar officials politely refused to comment on the issue, citing non-disclosure agreements with the Navy.

Nevertheless, to commemorate this grand occasion, _Ajax_ and one of the battleships, the _Halsey_ will spend the next three days docked at the New Washington orbital elevator, open to all visitors. See for yourself the finest examples of the might of NWC navy!

* * *

I originally planned to upload this chapter right before Duke Nukem Forever came out in order to make a cheap joke at its expense, but unfortunately a sudden hard drive failure made me rewrite it all from scratch. Combined with my usual motivational deficiency, this obviously took me a while. Sorry guys. And gals, if there are any on the Internet.

Oh, and I do hope that you will like the new "lore" segment near the end of the chapter. Considering how many things I have to make up or reimagine, I thought that would be the best way to explain things that aren't a part of the main story.


	8. Complications

I do realize that I am a bad and terrible person for updating so often, so I have a little gift for you all. I've been busy thinking about the not terribly descriptive X-COM timeline one day, and decided to flesh it out a bit. What I came up with, however, is positively huge, so it's going to take me several chapters to post it all. Feel free to PM me if you want the whole thing now.

* * *

**Chapter 8: Complications**

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 05:01**

**X-COM Base One**

"…_fortunately, the building was mostly empty…"_

"Boring. Next channel." He commanded the voice software.

"…_Cult officials have blamed the…"_

"Nobody cares. Next channel."

"…_the first terrorist attack of such scale and brutality to occur in…"_

"Why the hell do you-argh!" The pain shot through his arm again, making him forget what he was about to say. "Fuck…"

"Oh, quit being such a baby, Gaston." He heard a voice chide him from behind. In a few moments, his squadmate, Sata, collapsed onto the other half of his couch.

"_Megapol chief Klaus Gunkel is expected to comment on the…"_

"Mute." Gaston silenced the TV before turning his head to glare at the sniper. The sight of her smiling at him did alleviate his foul mood somewhat.

So did the not so unexpected realization that she was quite a pretty sight, out of that armor and all. After forcing himself to look up to her face again, he finally formed a polite enough response. "Have some sympathy, I was shot!"

"Aww, you poor thing." The woman obviously had a lot of fun mocking him, in fact she was trying very hard to stifle a giggle. "Come on, there's not even a trace of that bullet left there. Soup took care of that."

"It still hurts like a bi… err, a lot!" He tried moving his left arm around, and sure enough, it responded with another jolt of pain shortly.

Sata laughed quietly. "You're just imagining it." After an almost pleading stare from him, she relented. "Alright, alright, I'll stop it. I suppose you couldn't get any sleep with that, right?"

"Yeah." Gaston turned to face the screen again. "Not the best idea, now that I think of it. It's the end of the 21st century and there's still nothing good to watch…"

"You picked the wrong time to look, anyway." Sata replied. "Not even the morning talk shows have started yet. Plenty of news though, I see." She let out a smile that was a lot more wicked and a lot less heartwarming than the one she gave him.

Gaston let his head fall back and closed his eyes for a moment. "Corporal Homburger is so going to kill me…"

"Don't worry about it. He'll be even more prone to crashing face-first into the nearest soft item of furniture than you." Sata's voice came from somewhere closer to him.

"Why is that?"

"He was up all night, helping sort the stuff we recovered from the raid. So was I, actually… well, most of us."

Gaston felt his cheeks flush red in shame. "Oh, I… why didn't anyone tell me? I would've helped?"

Sata rewarded him with another laugh. "You're injured, nobody in their right mind would use you for heavy lifting right now."

"It's just a scratch, I mean, Soup fixed it in half an hour, I-" _I am so terrible at making excuses_, he thought as a yawn interrupted him.

"Calm down. Listen… wake me up for breakfast, okay? Everyone else is asleep now, but I can't sleep when I'm hungry."

After staring up and down at her petite figure yet again (a task which he had to admit he rather enjoyed) Gaston just had to ask "Eating before sleep? Not concerned about, ah, weight issues?"

"Aren't you a smartass." The last remark came from her seemingly moments before she dozed off in her corner of the couch, thus ending the conversation.

"What was that whole "I can't sleep when I'm hungry" thing about then?" Gaston asked her in vain. "Ah, women." He shrugged before returning to the futile task of finding something entertaining on the TV.

At least that would distract him from thinking what he had done today. For a while.

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

Due to the concept of separate nation-states slowly fading into obscurity, few now remember the first of the many radical geopolitical changes that resonated throughout the decaying planet Earth during the interlude between the first two Alien Wars.

The African continent had its fair share of problems due to the latter of 20th and early 21st centuries. The newly-independent nations were often created haphazardly, without taking demographic and cultural issues into account. More often than not this resulted in failed states, like the notorious Somalia, which remained in the state of civil war for almost 30 years.

The so-called "First World" countries were content to let this continue, as it let them access the abundant natural resources of Africa at a low cost. The disorganized African states were economically and militarily powerless before these neo-colonialists, but in 2019, this all changed.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 08:55**

**Mission Control, X-COM Base One**

"_What the hell, Armand?"_

Buchard flinched. This was the conversation he definitely wasn't looking forward to.

"Oh, morning Klaus. How's your day?" He felt confident he could explain things, but that wouldn't help Klaus with the media outrage that was heading his way.

An angry grunt came in from the other side. _"I knew you would say something like this. Always the charge-in-clean-up-later kind of gu…"_

"Hold." Buchard interrupted him, glancing at one of the operators in his command center. "Is this channel secure?"

Klaus' tone immediately changed to a more neutral one. _"It's my private hyper-wave link. It's safe."_

"Good. Now listen up. My men carried out enough munitions out of that building to equip an army. We had to make several trips to get everything. I'm uploading the full list to you now."

After a few moments of reading, Klaus spoke up again. _"Unbelievable. Weapon caches in the city aren't that uncommon, but these guys were sitting on a literal treasure trove. And that's just a minor temple."_

"That's just what we could salvage after our airstrike. Do you think they're up to something?"

"_Hell if I know. Like I said, everyone who tries investigating their activities ends up either bribed or dead. I hate to say it but… you know what, no I don't, it was damn worth it. To see that grin wiped off Thryn's face for once. She looked absolutely furious when I had the displeasure of meeting her today."_

"Blames the Inquisitors, doesn't she?" Buchard smiled to himself.

"_Yeah… wait, how did you know? Oh don't tell me…"_

"Yup. I left some "evidence". More than that, I was actually present in that raid and flipped her off in person. It's nice to hear that she still didn't get over it."

"_You crazy old lunatic. She won't rest till she finds you now."_ Klaus actually sighed.

"Let her. She didn't find me in '39 when I was running for my life, she won't find me now. And even if she does, my base is a hard nut to crack."

"_I thought all you had here were rookies."_

"From our viewpoints – yes. From anyone else's even that Frenchie I brought along with me is a peerless killing machine. Our training regimen has been… significantly improved since you left." Buchard stumbled a bit at that point.

"_That sounded so wrong, Armand."_

Buchard lowered his voice. "I know it did. This is something I really don't want to talk about."

"_You're still outnumbered by a significant margin. And there's also aliens."_

"Steinbach said that reinforcements are on their way already."

Klaus sighed again, this time in relief. _"That's good news."_

"It's one of the black ops teams returning from the Frontier."

Concern creeped into the police chief's voice_. "It's not who I think it is, is it?"_

"Yes it is. And he's coming to town with his entire squad."

Silence was his only answer for a few agonizingly long moments.

Finally, Klaus mustered a reply.

"_**Fuck**__."_

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

One of the most developed nations on the continent, the Republic of South Africa, underwent radical political changes during the second wave of the economic crisis of 2015. This was not so unusual at the time, but what happened next surprised the entire world – the newly-christened Africa Corporation became a truly unique case, being now based on a new ideology – corpocracy.

Several prominent companies banded together and pooled their resources to take over the country in a bloodless coup. Unconcerned with nationalistic ideals, the Africa Corp spent the next three years annexing its ailing neighbors through a combination of political trickery and promises of economic aid. The fiercely competitive nature of the Corp's government weeded out incompetents, and the nation – or more accurately, megacorporation – gathered half of the African continent under its banner by 2019, seemingly ensuring prosperity of its citizen-employees even in the face of the world crashing down around them.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 10:03**

**X-COM Base One**

Ian McNeil woke to the sound of the huge hangar ventilators spinning. Surprisingly enough, the sound, although loud, was mesmerizing and he didn't even notice that he had fallen asleep.

With a groan he rose up from the couch in the guard room, focusing his bleary eyesight on the thing behind the bulletproof glass – his Valkyrie.

He was about to smile when he noticed that the hangar technicians were busy replacing the Retribution missile launchers he had carried for the previous mission with Lancer laser cannons again.

The empty launchers made him instantly remember what happened a few hours ago, and with another groan he fell back on the couch.

"Never again…"

"Fun night, eh?" Adam Hill's voice came in from somewhere to his right.

Ian's mind worked hard at generating the most appropriate response. After half a minute of relatively frantic thinking, he decided he couldn't come up with anything even remotely polite, so he chose to change the subject. "I'm-"

Adam interrupted him "Starving. Here, catch."

Even in his current state Ian caught the plastic container containing a field ration without even looking. Still staring at the ceiling, he asked another question that was bothering him ever since he woke up. "How did the repairs go?"

From the corner of his eye, he saw Adam sit down on one of the chairs before answering in a mildly annoyed tone. "Already done, but… shit, man. I just can't get over it."

"Huh?" This time Ian exerted the titanic amount of effort required to turn his head to face Adam, who was staring past him with arms crossed.

"One shot, man, just one shot and it tore me like a wet paper bag."

Ian sighed, finally realizing what his comrade thought. "You're afraid of facing them again."

"Fuck you, man. This is not time to play chi-" his voice trailed off as Ian suddenly rose up from the couch.

Immediately regretting this decision, Ian nevertheless spoke clearly and loudly "Adam, I'm not judging you. I've seen what thing did, and we know from the files that these were the smallest they got. I'm not exactly eager to head out there and fight them on their terms, either."

"Yet we have to." Both pilots looked to the doorway to see Eric Brown standing there.

Ian chuckled. It seemed that the three of them could never be apart for long. "Well, there's our voice of encouragement."

Adam did not break out of character by continuing to radiate pessimism. "You can't deny that we won't last long with this kind of armament."

Eric took another seat and smiled as he attempted to cheer his teammate up "Come on. During the First War we started out with two MiGs and did just fine."

Adam scoffed. "Two top-of-the-line prototype MiGs chock full of the most advanced human technology at the time. Two thirds of what we have now are not even made for serious combat. Come on, Phoenixes are good for intimidating rebellious colonies and survivalist villages and that's about it."

"And then only if said colony doesn't have a Patton with a wing of Lightning fighters onboard, which doesn't happen often these days." Ian added.

"Well, lodge a complaint to Marsec customer support then!" Eric retorted, causing an outburst of laughter from Ian.

"Yes, yes, something like "Dear Marsec, your Phoenix hovercar sucks. Sincerely, X-COM."

This time even Adam grinned for a second before delivering his line in a deadpan tone "That's so mean. I think they're gonna cry."

After laughing some more, Ian adopted a more serious expression. "Still, Adam is right. Phoenixes aren't made for this, and until we get some actual military hardware I want you guys to avoid taking risks."

"I miss my Avenger, man." Adam sighed.

"Well, deal with it, we're not in the Navy anymore." Ian grumbled.

"I don't get it, we're X-COM. Aren't we supposed to be on the cutting edge of technology and skill?"

Now it was Ian's turn to sigh. "We're stationed at a backwater base. The only reason why we're even here and not in Geneva is because Mega-Primus is the sole human presence in both Americas and the only hope for these continents. If anything, our presence is merely symbolic… or rather, was symbolic until this crap started."

"Sole human presence? You're kidding?" Eric looked at him. After seeing his blank stare, Ian rummaged his memory and remembered that Eric was born and raised in space, so he didn't have much interest in Earth's affairs.

"No, Eric, I'm not. Americas were the worst casualty of the Cloud. If you go as much as ten miles away from the city you'll be poisoned by the very air you breathe. Mega-Primus is just one light in the darkness. There are few places on Earth where you don't have to look at the sky from behind a gas mask, and we're here to make sure that this planet doesn't find itself short on one such place."

The other two pilots did not hear speeches this serious from the usually laid-back Valkyrie pilot. After looking at each other, Adam started "We'll make do with what we have then."

Eric nodded. "If it bleeds, we can kill it."

Ian smiled. "We always got away with our antics during our Navy days, guys, stop talking like we're all about to die. And by the way, thanks a bunch for ruining my appetite." He reached for the ration pack without the same enthusiasm as before.

Adam waved his hand dismissively. "You eat too much anyway."

Eric laughed. "Oh Adam, sometimes I get the feeling that the sun will go out sooner than you stop being a jackass."

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

Although attempts were made to unite all of Africa, the mostly Islamic nations of the north were distrustful of the Africa Corp's ruthless and straightforward treatment – or even suppression - of religious and cultural issues. And from even further up north, the NATO block wasn't going to let the Corp sell its natural resources at hugely inflated prices. Using the Corporation's rather shaky moral foundation against it, the United Nations sanctioned a "liberation" of Africa in 2019. An easy victory was to be expected, after all, three years were barely enough for the megacorp to establish an army capable of resisting the iron fist of NATO. Two carrier battlegroups led by the newest of United States' prized nuclear aircraft carriers, the _Gerald R. Ford_ and _John F. Kennedy_, were sent to the shores of South Africa in preparation for an aerial campaign which would then be followed by an invasion.

On November 27th, 2019, both carriers, accompanied by their escorts, approached the territorial waters of the former Republic of South Africa, intent on intimidating the rogue state into submission with their appearance alone. The NATO intelligence did not anticipate any significant resistance whatsoever, and this was to become their fatal mistake.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 13:28**

**Quantum Physics Lab, X-COM Base One**

"So what you're saying is that this… thing can be easily replicated?" Buchard studied the alien weapon in his hands with an odd combination of disgust and genuine excitement.

Shuji nodded as he gestured towards the direction of the workshops. "Well, not immediately, but we are close to reverse-engineering its essential components. It's a rather curious weapon, obviously grown rather than assembled, but it's not a living organism, it's just a mechanical device that was… made using different construction methods. The internals make a lot more sense than its appearance, so we can and will replicate those."

Buchard looked at the weapon again. Sure enough, it looked more like a lump of meat. The only recognizable element was the grip – somewhat inconvenient for a human hand and a small bulge that Buchard figured was the trigger.

"Unlike previous alien artifacts we've captured during… my days," he commented, "This one seems to be practically unusable by a human. No sights. No decent grip. No safety."

Once again, Shuji nodded. "Fortunately, that's just the cosmetic side of it. The engineers are already working on a version of this disruptor gun that will be adapted for use by our agents. With all the features you mentioned included."

"Disruptor gun, huh?" The commander set the weapon back on the table he took it from, slowly turning his attention to other alien artifacts in the lab.

"Exactly." Shuji had seemingly lost interest in the commander, preferring the data readout from one of the monitors. "It projects a beam of sub-atomic particles that practically disintegrate everything in their path. Our standard issue armor can't take more than a pair of hits from it. And that's assuming they hit the actual plating and not the underarmor… well, you've seen what happened to Seidler."

Buchard shuddered. He had seen plenty of horrific injuries in his time (and most of their recipients did not survive them), and a look at Seidler's arm raised a lot of unpleasant memories. "What about the ammo? Can you replicate it, Shuji?"

The scientist blinked. "Ah, yes. The ammunition. Don't worry about it, Commander. This weapon draws its power from another dimension. In a sense, it's a miniature dimensional gate. Its capacity is somewhat limited, so the weapon takes about… ten minutes to recharge after completely depleting its internal capacitor. Still, it's very efficient, I'd say."

Buchard carefully approached the other weapon in the lab, this one kept under a transparent dome. "A weapon with unlimited ammo, it'll be like 2019 all over again if it gets out into the open… and what's this? You said it was an explosive?"

Shuji turned around for a split second to study the object in question before nodding and returning to work. "Yes, we've taken to calling it a… Boomeroid. It's a semi-sentient grenade. Not a particularly powerful one, thankfully."

"And… just how sentient is it?" Buchard quickly stepped away from the explosive.

"Enough to sense moving organic life forms and hurl itself at them. Repeatedly."

The commander took another step away from the grenade. "Can we use it?"

Shuji smiled proudly. "Certainly. We've made great progress in studying its internals already. Once we figure out a way to implement some sort of IFF we can start issuing it to the field agents."

After thinking for a moment, he added "For now, however, you might want to know that they sense only quick motion in a radius of about four to five meters. You can safely back away from it – slowly. Very slowly. Since it moves in leaps, you may be able to dodge it, too."

Buchard nodded, absorbing the information instantly. "Why don't they attack stationary targets if they can sense they're organic?"

"It's a form of fail-safe. It seems that a few stages of the alien reproductive cycle are… stationary, like those spitting eggs the agents brought back. It would make sense to use Boomeroids as proximity mines to guard those. And teaching it to distinguish between friend or foe would be problematic."

"Right. I think I'll put off using those until you understand how they work. We got enough to worry about even without sentient jumping grenades."

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

The Africa Corp retrofitted its four frigates with alien weaponry bought on the black market. Not satisfied with only that, the Corporation sought the services of mercenaries, including some X-COM soldiers. It is often claimed that the Corporation bribed the local S.O.R.E.S.O. branch in Cape Town to acquire the Elerium needed to power the weapons, but X-COM continues to deny these allegations to this day. If it were true, however, it wouldn't be surprising, since X-COM wasn't at the best of terms with both NATO and the USA – especially the latter, since they were the ones who slashed X-COM's funding and seized a significant part of its military hardware after the end of the First War.

Counting on the stealth capabilities of their frigates and the element of surprise, the Corporation struck.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 13:30**

**Training Area, X-COM Base One**

It turned out that both Gaston and Sata underestimated how much energy corporal Homburger had in him.

"One hundred-and-fifty-nine, one-hundred-and-sixty, one-hundred-and-sixty-one…" Gaston muttered to himself as he continued his push-ups. Fortunately for him, he was no stranger to physical exercise. Neither was Yuri.

The corporal himself was sitting on the floor right in front of them, grinning from ear to ear. He had already set the squad record, and dared the others to break it. Sata gave up on 150, muttering something about how she wasn't hired for this. She sat some distance away, occasionally glaring at Homburger.

"Two hundred and- oh fuck I give up." Gaston said as he stretched out on the floor. After a blissful minute of idleness, he finally sat up, casting a few curious glances around to see what other personnel was in the gym today.

The corporal nodded at him approvingly. "Only a few dozen short of mine. How's that arm of yours?"

"No problems at all, sir." Gaston moved it around carefully, but the pain did not come back.

"Great. Told you it just needed some physical strain to convince it that the bullet is gone. Well, let's just wait until Yakubik is done here and we can go grab a drink. And a shower."

"Why didn't you chew us out, sir?" Gaston blurted out the question that had been nagging at him ever since the corporal found him.

Homburger laughed so hard that Sata actually leaned away from him. "What do you think this is, a boarding school? You'll be getting sleep when you can and that's it, there's no designated period for that. And not that I encourage it, but there are always stims."

Sata frowned. "Corporal, you sound like a caveman. Stims are perfectly safe for as long as they're used responsibly."

A soft thud signaled the end of Yuri's physical limits. However, he immediately spoke to the floor "Responsible" is not really an epithet that can be used to describe an organization that used fusion warheads in the middle of a city."

Homburger retorted. "They were set to 5% of the maximum blast yield. We're not Marsec. We won't carpet-bomb civilians in order to just to kill a few rebels among them… like they did."

Yuri stood up and spoke up very slowly and quietly. "Sir, a personal question, if I may?"

Sighing, Homburger nodded. "Shoot."

"You were in Marsec before you joined X-COM, weren't you?"

Reluctantly, Homburger nodded again. "Yes. I was a… I was… I was in the Pacifier corps."

An uneasy silence descended upon the group. Seeing Yuri's unchanging, flat expression, Homburger slowly added "I wasn't on Thresus."

Yuri exhaled in relief, but then asked again "Why did you quit?"

The corporal's brows furrowed. "Some other time, private. Let's go get a drink, digging up the past leaves a bitter taste in my mouth."

Gaston was surprised that Yuri dropped the subject and followed his commander out, motioning for him and Sata to join them.

Sata, however, slowed down until she was sure Yuri and the corporal were out of hearing range before she muttered to Gaston "There aren't any known records of Marsec carpet-bombing civilians."

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

The risk paid off – and then some. The famous photograph of the burning USS_ John F. Kennedy_ capsizing in clear view of the African shores was all over the headlines around the world within hours, with the additional insult being the fact that this was the only photo the raiders took – the overwhelming power of alien plasma weapons instantly reduced the carrier's escorts to molten slag that sank beneath the waves too quickly.

Hours later, the Corporation released its second media bomb – a live footage of the USS _Gerald R. Ford_ entering the Cape Town port. It turned out that a mercenary strike force boarded the carrier using old X-COM flying power armor as soon as its escorts were neutralized. Faced with a contingent of nigh-invincible and highly experienced troopers, the carrier's crew chose to surrender.

By this point, NATO Command was in a state of shock. Exploiting their enemy's stupor, the Africa Corporation Security Force simply stripped the ship of everything of value over the course of a few days, and then scuttled it outside of Cape Town. The entire process was still being broadcast live, demonstrating the pragmatic mindset of the Africa Corp while utterly humiliating the US Navy.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 21:59**

**Mission Control, X-COM Base One**

"_Sector Five. Status normal."_

Armand Buchard was already back in his chair (and he noted that it was one damn fine comfy chair). He gave the monitors and his personal command interface an absent-minded look before sinking into his own thoughts.

The day was full of dealing with the consequences of the raid, checking up on the R&D department and various other organizational issues, roughly half of which were normally Andrea's responsibility.

However, the Commander flat out refused to let her resume her duties until her completely recovery.

Although most noticed his concern for the injured captain, few knew his reasons for it.

"_Sector Six. Status normal."_

On a whim, Buchard reached for his personal datapad.

The devices were a natural combination of all the utilities technological inferiority kept apart in the early 21st century. It was a phone, a camera, a computer and many other things.

The commander slowly browsed through the files until he stumbled upon the section labeled as "personal".

After much looking, he found the photo he was looking for.

It depicted himself, a much younger himself – black-haired and clean-shaved, obviously looking proud of himself in a military uniform and a stylish black beret.

There were others next to him, but Buchard's finger trailed towards one person in particular - an equally young woman in a US Navy uniform, standing behind most of the group and laughing at her brother's pretentious pose.

With a tap of his fingers he requested the information on the file. A single string appeared.

"_Nina and the 325th – Fort Bragg, CA – June 5__th__, 2019"_

With some hesitation, he scrolled through the next several photos, passing the one with the black band across its frame as quickly as he could.

The next set of images was that of war. He could see it from the thumbnails, the smoke, fire, and a rare group picture with his comrades in arms.

At other times he would reminisce about this strange period of his life, but this wasn't what he was after. It took some more searching, but eventually he found this photo as well.

After enlarging it, Buchard briefly wondered if he had forgotten how to cry. The little girl posing in front of an amazingly beautiful blue lake with next to a middle-aged Armand reminded him of Nina too much.

He tapped at the screen again. An audible sigh escaped him as he looked at the description.

"_Andie and grandpa in Geneva – August 21__st__, 2071"_

"Fifty years." He said to himself, careful not to let anyone else hear it. "Fifty years later I run into her."

_And on second day here I almost lose her. You would've been a better parent, Nina…_

"Commander, I think… you should have a look." The sight of all monitors switching to view dimensional gates snapped Buchard out of his daydreaming.

"Zoom in. Acquire status!" The gates were usually surrounded by burning particles, so he hoped that the operator's hunch wasn't right…

…no. The gate was expanding. It was starting again.

"Full alert! Place all combat personnel on standby! I want Sentries up in the air now!"

"UFOs just came in!" Another operator's frantic voice reported "One, two… five!"

Buchard bit his lip. "Type?" The ones going out of the gate he currently fixed his attention wasn't recognizable, but maybe the others…

"Unknown, sir. Assigning codenames Type 3 and Type 4."

The Commander cursed under his breath. "Track them. Alert the Megapol in sectors Three and Four."

"_Attention all personnel, scramble X-COM craft, UFO incursion confirmed, this is not a drill, I repeat, this is not a drill…"_

* * *

**2019: The Year that Changed the World**

The repercussions of this act were catastrophic, but in hindsight they were merely the straw that broke the camel's back. NATO collapsed virtually overnight, with most of Western European nations hastily putting some distance between themselves and their disgraced ally. Hawks cried out for vengeance in the US, for a bombing campaign that would send the African upstarts back into the Stone Age, but the truth set in soon enough – with its ailing economy, problems at home, and several thousand servicemen held as POWs by an adversary who did not sign the Geneva Convention, the USA had no choice but to admit defeat. After this, the remaining NATO nations decided to dissolve the organization.

* * *

**Friday, 10****th**** March – 22:09**

**En route to Venus Spires**

"Sector Four? Oh fuck." Ian McNeil groaned as his Valkyrie accelerated above the city buildings.

"_Skyscrapers. Why'd it have to be the sector with the skyscrapers?"_ Adam Hill agreed.

"_Cut down chatter. You're above it right now, start descending."_

"Safety locks, sir?" Ian asked with a glimmer of hope.

"_Will stay on, Sergeant. They are between the buildings in a densely-populated area. I won't let you rain fire from above. Get in close._"

Ian felt a sting of shame. "Yes sir." Sure enough, his weapons were supposed to work at distances of several dozens or even hundreds of kilometers. But their effective range in Mega-Primus was substantially decreased by software-imposed limits, designed to prevent inaccurate long-range fire in a densely packed urban environment.

"_They're changing formation again. Two slow-moving targets in the middle, three fast on your approach vector."_ A comm officer came through. _What was his name_, Ian wondered. He was some new guy, one of those who were stationed in the city proper. _Brett…_ _Brett Scruggs, wasn't it?_

"The fast targets are probably escorts." Buchard snapped him out of it. "We'll need Sentry Two unit to distract them. Sentry One, you must get through to the ships they're protecting."

"Yes sir." Ian clutched the flight stick tight. "Sentry One, going in."

A series of 3D rings appeared on his front screen to indicate the chosen path towards what Ian automatically assumed were the dropships. A secondary window popped up showing footage from the cameras around the city and giving Ian a first good look at his prey.

_Why the hell is it purple_ was his first thought as his Valkyrie dove after the droplets of rain towards the city below, announcing its arrival with a sonic boom.

After a glance at a side screen he saw that Brown and Hill were about to attack one of the escort ships. So far all five vessels cruised slowly through the city, thankfully hidden from the inhabitants by the continuing downpour.

Ian sighed in relief as the Valkyrie's AI informed him that there was no wind this time. "Let's dance then, my pretties!" He grinned to himself, as the hum of the engines somewhere far behind the cockpit quickly became a roar.

This was what he lived for.

The Valkyrie finally emerged in the path of the alien battlegroup. He did not have a direct line of sight to them yet and was forced to decelerate to avoid crashing into the buildings.

Target markers had appeared on his screen already, and soon he would begin-

"_Sentry Two One starting attack run, target locked, missiles awa- wha?"_

Ian glanced at the radar and immediately understood Eric's confusion. The alien escort ships accelerated to ridiculous speeds in a split second, and Ian could've sworn that one of them tried to ram Adam's craft.

"_Shit! They're too fast!"_

'_Did it just vaporize that intersec-"_

'_Shut it! Dive! Dive!"_

Ian watched with horror as the two blips on the radar screen frantically tried to escape their pursuers in vain.

A gap between buildings allowed him to see part of the battle, but after zooming in, he saw that it wasn't a battle, it was a beatdown. The aliens clearly outclassed Phoenixes to the point that the hovercars were too busy dodging their attacks to attempt to launch any of their own weapons. Only the superior skills of the X-COM pilots enabled them to squeeze everything their instantly obsolete machines could offer in order to stay airborne.

Buchard's alarmed voice came in. "Brown, Hill, head west to point G57 on your map, the buildings there are clustered tight enough to make you lose them."

Ian frantically turned from the radar screen to the dropships in front of him. _What do I do, what do I do…_

"_We're not gonna make it, there's too much open-"_

"_Sentry One, get those bandits off them, now."_ Buchard's voice, even and calm, somehow managed to sound louder than the frantic chatter of the other two pilots.

"Yes sir!" The momentary sense of relief got drowned in adrenaline as the Valkyrie accelerated once again, zipping past the two dropships before either could react.

In a few moments he emerged behind the tree alien ships that were busy trying to box their small and dodgy prey in.

"_Target is now within firing range."_

Ian pressed the button as soon as he heard that, unloading his arsenal into the nearest escort ship…

_What. The. Fuck._ The three words hammered themselves into Ian's brain as he saw his laser beam – a high-powered laser that could, with some skill, burn through a battleship – leave only a rapidly-cooling scorch mark on the damn saucer's mottled greenish-brown surface.

The two Prophet missiles impacted the same spot a millisecond later, but failed to do any noticeable damage either.

Time slowed down to a crawl as Ian registered that the ships were turning to face him with their beam gun batteries.

He yanked the stick backwards, dodging the first volley of the cursed purple beams, the violent maneuver eliciting a stifled groan from him as even the anti-gravity field generated by his Valkyrie's Elerium propulsion unit failed to nullify the effect of the g-forces.

The interceptor shot straight into the sky, immediately followed by all three of the escort ships.

"What kind of… armor does this… thing… have?" Ian could barely manage to spit out words while trying to dodge the second volley with a series of sharp turns, this time towards the ground.

"_Mission plan has been changed. Sentry Two unit, head to waypoint A13 and intercept the Type 3 targets. Primary target has been marked on your HUDs."_ Scruggs was noticeably more agitated than Buchard, but was trying to bring his voice under control.

"_Roger…"_

"_Affirmative."_

It took a lot of concentration for Ian to actually process what was being said to him and not get shot to pieces in the meanwhile.

"_Sentry One." This time it was Buchard. "You need to get those bogeys distracted for another two minutes while Sentries Two finish their attack run. Make sure their attention stays on you."_

With an immense effort Ian silenced his gut-wrenching fear and turned his Valkyrie around to face the escort ships.

He had mere seconds to react, but seconds were enough.

He did not even wait for confirmation from the Valkyrie's AI.

Three. Two. One.

Another beam illuminated the cloudy sky. Fortunately for Ian, his targets were positively huge, and that was coming from someone piloting a craft that could barely fit into the launch tubes.

But size was about the only advantage he had, as the beam dissipated harmlessly upon hitting the target.

Already expecting this effect, Ian switched targets to the vessel he attacked earlier, releasing all six of his remaining Prophet missiles.

This time, he was rewarded with a huge puff of smoke and a flash of purple.

"_Looks you took out one of its gun batteries. Good job."_

"_Sentry Two One passing waypoint."_

'_Sentry Two Two passing waypoint… target in sight."_

_Almost there_, Ian thought as his Valkyrie zipped past the escort ships and sped up again. _Almost-_

* * *

The two Phoenixes finally emerged from the downtown district, having shaken their pursuers.

After a few frantic looks around and at the sensors, Adam Hill focused on his target. Just a few more seconds and he'd be able to-

"_Sentry One has been hit!"_ If Scruggs had at least tried to keep his voice under control before, this time he failed.

"Shit!"Adam instinctively turned to where Ian's Valkyrie was supposed to be, before realizing that he wouldn't be able to see it through the darkness.

"_I'm losing power in port side thrus- arrgh!"_ With an ear-splitting buzz of static, Ian's voice vanished.

And just at that moment, Adam could've sworn he saw an orange fireball even through the rain.

"Target is now within firing range."

'_Hill, Brown, focus! Shoot that thing down!" _Even Buchard lost his cool as he saw the Phoenix pilots hesitate.

Adam had honed his reflexes for most of his career, and he could go through thoughts and emotions in the blink of an eye.

It took but a moment.

First surprise.

Then disbelief.

Then anger.

Then he pulled the trigger.

* * *

The command center was relatively quiet. The tension could be felt in the air, but the sound of sirens and personnel running around the base were muffled while inside.

"Showing multiple hits on the primary target. It's slowing down," one of the operators reported. Buchard took a mental note to learn their names someday. Scruggs was the only one he recognized this far.

The tactical map displayed in the command center showed the yellow cones representing the Phoenixes take a sharp turn away from the incoming enemy fire. Thankfully, it seemed that the transports were equipped with the less-powerful variant of the disruptor beam used on the captured unmanned UFOs.

"Sentry Two One, report status." Buchard ordered.

"_The fucking thing is smoking, sir, but doesn't look like it's going down. They're hovering over Cityclean One… the fuck is this…"_

Scruggs interjected somewhere from Buchard's right. "They're probably dropping infiltrators, sir."

Buchard nodded. "Can you execute another attack run?"

"_No can do sir. We're spent."_

"The escort ships are breaking off the engagement… they're heading back to the transports!"

Buchard swallowed a short curse. "Sentries, break off the engagement, RTB, I repeat, return to base now. Take a detour through waypoints A13, A9, A3. Go!"

"_But sir, Ian- Sentry One-"_

The Commander glanced at the other corner of the tactical map. By some miracle the Valkyrie was still airborne, but obviously out of control, making a wide arc over the city and gradually descending.

One escort ship suddenly broke off from the rest of the group and headed towards the stricken interceptor.

"You can't do anything now, Sentry Two. Return to base."

The hovercars made it back to the safe haven of the skyscraper cluster fast enough, prompting Buchard to refocus on the Valkyrie.

* * *

"Come on, come on!" Ian could do little but wave away the smoke in front of him as the ship's controls were unresponsive. The signals from all his cameras were lost, and the emergency red lighting was wasn't helping things.

"_System reboot complete."_

"Finally! Run diagnostics!" Ian grabbed the flight stick and yanked it. Lost signal or not, he could still tell if he was falling.

"_Main cameras online. Targeting subroutines offline. Low-light vision enhancement offline."_

_Crap_, he thought. In case the battle still wasn't over, he'd be shooting blind.

"_Port side thrusters one, two, four offline. Starboard thrusters two, three offline. Main thruster online. Warning: Elerium containment chamber integrity compromised. Fire signature detected._ _Automatic extinguishers deployed."_

"Fantastic, I'm flying a time bomb now." He muttered to himself.

"_Weapons control online. Sensors online. Hyper-wave comms online."_

Wasting no time, he immediately opened the link back to the base. "Iceberg, this is Sentry One One, come in."

"_Reading you loud and clear, Sentry One."_ Buchard's voice immediately appeared. _"Damage report."_

"I'm fried, sir. Half the propulsion is gone, targeting is gone, I can barely keep it airborne." Ian had to summon all his remaining willpower to prevent panic. He had never come this close to buying the farm before…

"_Bogey behind you, dive!"_

Obeying his reflexes, Ian immediately did as he was told. A glance over his shoulder, to the rear camera screen revealed a large disruptor beam had passed right where he would've been a second later if he had not changed course.

"The Type 3 UFOs have started moving. They're headed to the gate Sector One."

Ian cast a quick look at this own map. His uncontrolled descent landed him right in the path of the main UFO group.

"McNeil." Buchard said.

"Sir?" Ian briefly wondered why would the Commander be referring to him by name.

"_Do you have any weapons left?"_

"Yes sir, the laser still… works!" That last part came out a bit strained as he had to bank to the left to avoid another shot. It seemed that the fire rate of the UFO's weapon was not high.

"_One of the transports is heavily damaged. I need you to bring it down_."

So Buchard was asking him to sacrifice his own life to_ maybe_ shoot down a ship.

Self-preservation instinct acted up for a moment, only to be silenced by the illogical, yet raging desire to piss off the alien bastards who had trashed his beloved Valkyrie. "Yes sir. Commencing attack run."

The pilot of the alien craft behind him – if there even was a pilot on one of these monsters – acted as if surprised by the sight of his crippled prey suddenly accelerating to Mach 1 again.

Too late did Ian realize that he wouldn't be able to hit the UFO without targeting aid from the Valkyrie's malfunctioning computer. Swearing under his breath, he watched the laser beam miss the transport by a few inches as he overshot it and turned around for another run.

"They've passed the city walls. Estimating departure through dimensional gates in thirty seconds." Scruggs was sounding increasingly desperate.

The escorts were already chasing after him, hoping to steer him away from the transports by spraying disruptor fire, but Ian did only the minimum of the maneuvers required to dodge incoming shots. He'd need to get closer…

Finally, the smoking and sparking saucer appeared from the darkness.

Ian could not contain a victorious roar as the beam shot right through the damaged transport, causing multiple explosions inside.

He immediately accelerated again, hoping that now the escorts would leave him alone.

"It's losing speed and altitude. Going down outside city limits. Get out of there, Sentry One."

"Roger that, Iceberg."

"Sir, one of the Type 4s-"

Horrible realization set in a moment too late as a disruptor beam hit the Valkyrie, immediately accompanied by the scream of the emergency siren.

"_Fire signature detected. Automatic extinguishers deployed. Automatic extinguishers offline."_

"Oh shit, shit!" Ian pulled the stick, hoping to gain some altitude and make a run for the cloud cover-

Two more bolts hit in rapid succession, with a violent explosion rattling the interceptor immediately thereafter.

Even though he was wearing a pressure suit, he still raised his arms to shield himself from the shards of the shattered displays.

The familiar, yet rarely experienced sensation of gravity throwing him around indicated that something went very wrong.

The lights went out again.

"This is Sentry One going down, controls are not responding, mayday, mayday, mayday, I repeat, Sentry One going down, requesting SAR, SAR, immediate-" He didn't get to finish as the Valkyrie slammed into something violently enough to make his world go dark.

* * *

Commander Buchard watched the remaining alien vessels circle for a bit at the Valkyrie crash site before departing through the dimensional gate.

"_UFO designated Crash Four landed in the vicinity of the abandoned Civic Project, sir."_

"_All agents are on standby and ready to depart."_

Buchard exhaled, trying to vent some of his rage at the failed operation before speaking up in his usual calm demeanor.

"Put Charlie on Phoenix One and Bravo on Phoenix Two. Secure the Valkyrie. Search-and-rescue takes priority."

"_Affirmative. Squads Bravo and Charlie report to the hangar for immediate combat deployment."_

After taking another deep breath, the Commander continued. "Alpha and Delta will use the Wolfhound. Set destination to Crash Four. Standby for further orders."

"_Affirmative. Squads Alpha and Delta, mission starting. Heading out now."_

_I can still turn this around_, Buchard thought. His eyes wandered to the yellow cross designating the crash site of the Valkyrie.

It was a mere hundred meters away from a red cross.

* * *

**Excerpt from Jane's Fighting Ships 2080**

One of the most peculiar additions to the growing arsenal of Marsec Corporation's own warships is the M-5ME Valkyrie Interceptor. This frigate-sized vessel represents a challenge issued towards the traditional model of using stationary outposts and carrier ships to launch small one-man fighters. Instead, the Valkyrie is a relatively large vessel sporting capital ship-grade armaments, heavy armor and the increasingly popular modular design, which allows the Valkyrie to function in a myriad of different roles, from dedicated fighter to troopship.

At its core is the new Superdynamics FSG-00 SD Turbo fusion engine, which can optionally be replaced with an even more powerful FSG-02 SD Special. Combined with the fusion thrusters mounted all over the Valkyrie's fuselage, this results in a superb performance in space. Although the Valkyrie's Elerium power plant is about the same size as that of fighters, its aerodynamic shape, better thrust-to-weight ratio and ability to survive atmospheric re-entry allow it to perform admirably in the planetary atmosphere as well.

Marsec intends to use the Valkyrie primarily as a long-range patrol craft on the space lanes in the Sol system and beyond. Its versatility and excellent combat capabilities have already attracted several buyers, and Marsec has already announced plans to expand Valkyrie production in order to cope with the increased demand for this unique vessel.


	9. Echoes

Boy do I love inserting random references to other sci-fi works.

* * *

**Chapter 9:** **Echoes**

**Friday, 10th March – 23:20**

**Civic Project  
**

The Wolfhound came to a stop sudden enough to send Gaston tumbling both from his daydreaming and his seat.

"The road is blocked. We're disembarking early." Homburger prodded Gaston with his boot. "Get the hell up, Gautier, you're on point today."

Gaston's natural urge to second-guess the order was firmly buried under the military discipline drilled into his mind over the years, so he scrambled to his feet and ran off the ramp.

After scanning his immediate surroundings for threats, he motioned the rest of the team to follow him.

"Weather has gone all to shit, where did this fog come from? There wasn't any an hour ago…" Sata looked around nervously.

"Hey, at least it stopped raining. Rather convenient," Yuri added.

"Why can't we have this thing support us?" Gaston heard someone say as the Wolfhound drove off.

Zurovec chimed in soon afterwards. "It's a troop transport, Achuleta, not an IFV. Move it. Kemp, Frogley, stop gawking. Form up."

There certainly was something to "gawk" at. Gaston was among the first generation of humans to be born off-world, and he knew only the sterile, futuristic cities on the Frontier.

The glimpse of the slums he caught when he arrived in the city was depressing enough, but up close it was practically overwhelming. This wasn't even on the level of Bakunin block raid (which he did not participate in). This was the true face of the Earth. Abandoned, ruined, monstrous. The echo of a world long go-

"Gautier, this goes for you too!" A prod in the back quickly brought Gaston back down to Earth. _Damn_, he thought. He definitely needed to cut back on philosophical musings when in the middle of a combat zone.

"Oh, great," Homburger muttered at the sight of a collapsed overpass that was blocking the road between the decrepit slums. "They couldn't build it to last for some fifty years?"

As always, the good old Commander Buchard was on standby with a portion of relevant information. _"This block was abandoned after a particularly violent gang war during the aftermath of the Second Alien War, corporal. Explosives were involved. Time just finished the job. I hope you all understand that this section of the city is completely abandoned. Exercise caution, the crew of the crashed UFO might not be the only opposition you'll meet. Hold, I got someone here-"_

Another voice came in through the radio, this time someone unexpected – Shuji Iwahara. _"Gentlemen. It's extremely likely that the alien presence in the city is much more significant than our previous evidence suggested, given that this flight is but one out of possibly hundreds. If this is the case, then it would be logical for the bulk of their forces to congregate in the unpopulated locations such as the Civic Project."_

Zurovec sighed. "Thanks, doc. I feel so much better right now."

"_Please be careful. The vessel you brought down is likely manned and has to contain the answers we need to continue our research. Obviously, we'd rather like to receive it intact."_

Gaston tapped the missile launcher on his back and let out an exaggerated sigh, prompting a snicker from Sata and Yuri.

"_First, however, you need to secure the Valkyrie. We cannot afford to lose the ship or its pilot. Especially the pilot."_ Buchard reminded them of the task at hand.

"Understood. What's the situation there?" Homburger asked as Gaston started moving.

"_They're holding the fort. So far the aliens took a few potshots at them, but it's not enough to get any idea of their numbers."_

"What about the pilot?"

Something moved in the corner of his vision, prompting Gaston to train his rifle at the empty window. No. Nothing.

"_Seidler can't reach him… but anyway, he should be alive. Valkyrie's cockpit is basically a composite armor-encased pod with shock-absorbing mesh in-between, designed to survive such occasions."_

Yet the moment he looked the other way, another subtle movement returned his attention to that spot. Gaston glanced at Yuri and pointed towards his motion scanner in a silent question, prompting Yuri to shake his head as an answer.

"_He smashed into the ground at Mach 1 and didn't eject in the first place, that can't be- what the… Uh, HQ? I think we got company."_ Taylor said through the static. _"I can't see shit through this fog but our motion scanner is picking up signatures surrounding us."_

"_Tango, eight o' clock! Bryant, drop him!"_ Krause sounded loud enough to disorient Gaston for a moment.

"_Looks like they figured out what we're up to. Alpha, Delta, double time!"_ Buchard ordered.

Both squads broke into sprint, following the sounds of distant gunfire.

* * *

"Ugh…" became his best attempt at expressing his dissatisfaction with the situation before a violent cough ended it. "Fuck…" came out next, notably more coherent due to the pain starting to recede.

The acrid smoke from burnt electronics kept him disoriented and nauseous for a while longer as he desperately tried to remember who he was, where he was, and what did he do to deserve this.

"Hey! Flyboy!" Someone's voice came from behind him. "You ok down there? Come on, talk to me!"

After taking a few breaths, Ian managed to yell back "I'm alive, if that's what you mean! The hell is going on?"

The voice got a bit closer. "You crashed right near that UFO, we're holding the fort until the rest of us get here. Can you last until we're done securing it?"

"Well, I don't feel like dying but… hold on…" Ian slowly let his eyes wander to the bottom section of the cockpit. "Ah, shit."

"What? What's up? Speak up, man!"

Ian stared at the ceiling, trying very hard not to focus on what he saw. "I, uh, my legs are a mess, so I'm not coming out by myself. I'll just have to wait until you guys are done out there."

The voice got even closer as its owner tried to get into the cockpit through the rear hatch. "Damn, it's jammed… you sure about that? You sound awfully calm for someone who just rammed a house like a cruise missile."

Ian chuckled. "The suit probably pumped me full of painkillers and nanites while I was out, otherwise I'd be screaming like a little girl right now."

"Seidler, get back here! They're coming!" Another voice, barely audible, came from somewhere further towards the Valkyrie's back.

"Shit. Gonna have to leave you alone for some time here, flyboy."

"Damn shame, I could've used some company," Ian sighed as he started to slip into drug-induced stupor.

* * *

**Friday, 10th March – 23:51**

**Civic Project**

"You'd think that they would have some thermal sensors built into this thing," Yuri exhaled as he and Gaston made it to the relative protection of a street corner.

Gaston attempted to shake his head with the heavy helmet still on it. "It's just police armor built to stop ancient non-energy weapons. I'm surprised it even has night vision."

A series of disruptor beams blasted into the wall they were hiding behind. Sensing a lull in enemy fire, Gaston poked out and sprayed half his magazine in the relative direction of the enemy to no avail.

"Gautier, that ammo doesn't come free!" Corporal Homburger berated him as he and Sata joined the rest of the squad.

"Sorry, sir. Can't see the fuckers."

Homburger peeked around the corner, not even flinching as the next series of disruptor beams missed him by quite a margin. "Neither can they, so don't go spraying on full auto, you're just giving your position away. Sata, have at them."

Luckily for all the agents involved, Megapol sniper rifles did come with all the equipment necessary for accurate fire in low visibility conditions.

The sniper in question carefully came out from behind cover, crouching, as she aimed at something in the fog and- "There's nothing in there, sir."

The other three squad members exchanged quick, (presumably) dumbfounded looks with each other before staring back at her. "What do you mean by that?" Homburger asked.

Sata sighed in annoyance. "Exactly that. Either they're all cold-blooded, or they retreated."

The fact that disruptor fire died down completely seemed to support that last statement.

"_Something's not right here. It's like they're just taking potshots in our general direction and then running away,"_ Zurovec shared his concerns on the radio.

"It's probably a delaying action, they're trying to keep us away from the transport." Homburger said, moving out of cover as well.

Gaston looked around, nervously studying each and every window through the sights of his rifle. "Why would they do that?"

"It's obvious, rookie," Homburger replied. "They're trying to either repair the ship and get the hell out, or to sabotage what remains of it. Worst thing is, they might as well succeed since our first priority is the Valkyrie."

Gaston didn't even notice how Delta squad appeared from behind, with Zurovec speaking up, annoyed "Are you done with your discussion yet? We got guys to rescue."

"They seem to be holding fine," Homburger shrugged as he nevertheless motioned the squad to follow him into the fog.

Commander Buchard provided some additional information. _"For now, corporal. The aliens have attempted only one serious attack on our crash site so far and were repulsed. They haven't done anything of note since."_

Krause offered a more detailed explanation _"Bryant killed the only one that stepped into the open, the rest just sprayed us for a while and left. I don't like this… remain on your guard. Seidler, can you get the pilot out or not? We're sitting ducks here!"_

Gaston cursed as he tripped over a crack in the ancient asphalt, prompting a chuckle from Sata "God, you're so clumsy at times."

While taking the air in to unleash a sufficiently witty retort, he noticed something on the ground up ahead. Wide-eyed, he stared as the object in question suddenly jumped into the air towards Emile Kemp.

The horror of the realization let itself out of his throat in the form of one word.

"BOOMEROIDS!"

* * *

**Saturday, 11th March – 00:02**

**Valkyrie One Crash Site, Civic Project**

"I fucking knew it!" Krause's yell was loud enough to drown out the multiple explosions that could still be heard through the squad link.

Rage built up inside the sergeant like a fiery inferno. To fall for this kind of a stupid, idiotic, utterly predictable trick was so humiliating for the man that his resulting fury could probably power the entirety of Mega-Primus for a month.

"_Sergeant, get a hold of yourself-"_ Krause instantly stopped paying attention to the words of his direct superior as the fog lit up with purple for a second.

Then Buchard's reprimand was completely silenced with an even larger explosion that shook the ground so hard that Seidler and Bryant fell over.

An uneasy silence settled over the crash site, with the sound of electric fires inside the Valkyrie and radio static being the only things audible.

Finally, Commander Buchard himself spoke up, his intonation drastically changed from before. _"Motherfuckers."_

The slur made Taylor and Krause exchange glances, which in turn made Krause note again how pointless the gesture was due to the helmets on their heads. "Sir? What was that?"

"_That, Corporal, was a Megapol rescue transport responding to Valkyrie's automated distress call. I can only guess that the weapons on that UFO are back online."_

"Took them a while to send an RT," Taylor blurted out, "Wait, you don't-"

Buchard silenced him_ "It's unmanned, so nobody will notice. What's worse is that this gun battery is aimed in your direction. The Phoenixes weren't fired at since they dropped you some distance away, but the moment we attempt to send a medivac in it'll be a sitting duck."_

Some distance away, Krause was trying to raise the other two squads "Alpha, Delta, come in! Anyone? Goddamn it, all units report status!"

Some time passed before the answers started flowing in. _"Alpha Two here. The Corporal got hit by an explosion but he'll be fine. I lost the sight of the other two."_

"_Delta Three is down, I repeat, Delta Three is down!"_ An audible deep breath followed before Zurovec continued in a more composed manner. _"Delta Two is missing, Four is with me."_

"What the hell do you mean by "missing"? You were all together a minute ago!" Krause was obviously not too pleased with the news.

"_We've all split to avoid the boomeroids, this place is a minefield. It's safe in here, but we can't make even an attempt to search for others."_

"_Alpha Four and Three here. We've made it to cover, but it looks like we're on the other side of this deathtrap, please advise."_

"_This is Delta Two. I can see Alpha Three and Four, I'm on my way to rendezvous with them but… we have a problem."_

* * *

**Saturday, 11th March – 00:08**

**UFO Crash Four, Civic Project**

Still trying to catch his breath, Gaston at least tried to awkwardly wave to the lone approaching trooper. Sata, sitting right next to him, could not even manage that.

Gaston glanced at her and attempted to lighten up the mood a bit "Well, if this were the Olympics, we'd definitely have our gold now."

The awkward joke did elicit a chuckle from Sata "Boomeroid dodging? I'd love to see that included into the list of disciplines."

"Hope we're clear of them now," he added. The preceding five minutes were just a blur of random acrobatic feats, evading murderous sentient grenades and going nearly blind and deaf from the constant explosions. Miraculously, both he and Sata escaped unscathed. Hearing Krause on the squad link, he chimed in to report their status. "Alpha Four and Three here. We've made it to cover, but it looks like we're on the other side of this deathtrap, please advise."

In-between strained wheezes coming out of her helmet's respirator, Sata brought up this topic "Did you notice how they were constantly overshooting us? I don't think they can change direction in mid-air."

Shifting his thoughts from the awfully annoying feeling of the sweat trickling down his back and from how damn uncomfortable breathing in this _thing_ had suddenly become, Gaston nodded. "Nor do they pack munch of a punch."

"_Hey, fuck you, Gautier… my fucking… everything… god!" _a pained voice startled them both on the squad link.

Their momentary confusion was cleared up by the relieved-sounding Zurovec _"Looks like Delta Three will live. We still need a medivac and an explosive ordnance disposal team here ASAP."_

"_Negative. The only safe place in the vicinity is the Valkyrie crash site and it's within the line of fire of the alien transport,"_ Buchard did not sound as optimistic. _"Until that ship is secured, you're all stuck there."_

"Oops, it was still transmitting," Gautier said, embarrassed, as the Delta squad agent finally came within hearing range.

"_What was that problem you mentioned?"_ Buchard asked.

"I peeked around the next corner while ru- err, retreating. We're practically just a few feet away from the alien ship, sir."

"_That's nice,"_ the Commander said nonchalantly. _"I'm asking the impossible of troops under my command for the second time today, but I have no choice. Gautier, Yamanaka, Achuleta. Your current objective is to storm and disable the alien ship and all its defenders."_

"Sir?" Gaston couldn't believe his ears.

"_There is no other way. Your respective squads are stuck on the other side of the minefield. Bravo and Charlie are surrounded by the boomeroids as well. We can't get an EOD team or medivac here by ground, they'll get slaughtered. And the ship has the only two suitable landing locations – near itself and the Valkyrie – covered by its disruptor weapon. I'm sorry it has come to this, but you three are our only chance. If you don't make it, we'll have to bomb the crash site and all our pilots fought for today will be for naught."_

Before anyone could object, Scruggs chimed in_ "Mission plan has been updated. Units Alpha Four, Alpha Three, Delta Two redesignated Echo One, Echo Two, Echo Three."_

"Wait, you're putting me in charge?" Somehow Gaston did manage to sound even more surprised.

"_None of the three of you have any experience, but you scored best in your leadership aptitude test, Gautier, so yes."_ Buchard's tone made clear that this decision was final.

"_Take it easy, rookie,"_ Homburger attempted to calm him down. _"Your equivalent rank in the Army would be staff sergeant, you're trained for this and you'll do fine. Now go capture us a ship, I'm tired of sitting on my ass here."_

Despite being one of the youngest X-COM agents present, Gautier knew well that one did not make it through training by simple stroke of luck. His confidence in himself restored, he stood up. "Right. Squad, form up on me."

The other two agents took their places slightly behind him as he settled into the familiar routine of scanning every nook and cranny. The lack of a motion scanner did not help alleviate his paranoia at all.

As they set off to their destination, Gaston put his mind to work on how to proceed. Their collective firepower would significantly be augmented by Achuleta's autocannon, but in close confines of an alien ship Sata would not be able to put her sniper rifle to good use. There still remained the mind bender, but, amazingly, none of the X-COM's psi-capable troops have tried using it on aliens yet. It wasn't a high priority task, since neither Sata's nor Corporal Taylor's abilities were particularly potent.

"So, any idea on how we'll pro- wow," Sata pretty much voiced what all of them thought when the ship finally came into view.

First off, it was _huge_. So huge, in fact, that it plowed a trench right through the ruins before coming to stop in what was once a small park.

"I think a saw an airlock on its side." Achuleta commented. "I hope it still works, this thing is wrecked pretty bad."

"_Private Achuleta is correct,"_ Buchard agreed. _"This ship has been subjected to the firepower of our entire fleet. For your own sake, I'd like to hope that most of its crew was killed in the crash."_

As if to confirm his words, a huge plume of smoke escaped one of the multiple hull ruptures.

"That's reassuring," Gaston said. "Let's get this over with."

"Contact, ten o' clock, one hundred fifty."

Gaston didn't even understand who said that as his mind was instantly preoccupied with finding cover and confirming the sighting.

"Confirming contact, hundred fifty and closing in. Orders?" Achuleta had already found a conveniently placed concrete slab to hide behind.

Finally, Gaston saw the murky outline of an Anthropod in the fog through the scope of his rifle. Then he put it down, trying to see the alien with his own two eyes. That failed.

He looked through the scope again to see that the alien had moved an impossibly long distance towards them already. "Contact confirmed, hundred ten."

"Still at hundred thirty here, commander." Sata sounded confused.

"Huh?" Gaston looked back to where he originally saw the alien. "Damn, there are several of them!"

"I got another one at hundred forty, left of the first sighting." Achuleta's voice betrayed nervousness.

"There might be even more."

"Well, we're not going to stare at them all day, are we?" Gaston sneered. "Sata, start dropping 'em. Achuleta, load high-explosive ammo!"

"Roger that, loading HE." Achuleta reached into his backpack.

A bright red beam illuminated the battlefield, grazing the arm of one of the Anthropods. A hail of disruptor fire immediately returned the favor, forcing Sata to dive to the ground.

"Goddamn fog, it's making my firing position too obvious. I can't get a clear shot that way!"

Gaston peeked out of cover. "Well, that's why we have an autocannon. Achuleta, open up!"

The agent nodded and fired a short, six-round burst in the direction of the Anthropods. While not particularly destructive, it was still enough to blast whatever puny cover the ruins afforded to bits.

One alien fell over and did not rise up again.

Gaston and Sata used the opening to take proper aim and bring down their respective targets.

"_Three tangos down, the rest are retreating. Good work,"_ Buchard commented. _"Judging by from what I could see from your cameras, their disruptor guns have a somewhat limited effective range."_

"_That explains why they didn't try to engage us in the open,"_ Krause said. _"These things are smarter than they look."_

The squad carefully rose from cover, with Gaston taking the lead again. "Thanks, sergeant, now I feel really safe. Alright, we're heading for the ship now."

* * *

**Saturday, 11th March – 00:21**

**X-COM Base One**

The omnipresent ventilation fans kept humming. A loud, yet soft sound one easily gets used to.

Shuji closed his eyes, promising himself that it would be just for a second. Just a few seconds of welcome bliss to make the burning in his eyes go away. The ever-busy scientist had barely slept for days.

So many things to do, categorize, examine, dissect, understand, learn, weaponize and turn on their former owners.

Shuji was always a man of peace, but he lived in a turbulent time. He had long since come to accept the inevitability of violence as a solution to most, if not all problems. Even with humanity on the brink of a new golden age. One that he hoped to help usher in.

_Could this be it_, he wondered. Another war was to provide answers? A war would give his race another push in the right direction?

Truly, alien interference had already provided mankind with technology needed to finally leave its dying home. It also meant a chance to reach for the stars together, a chance to forgive petty grievances and unite in one mighty push for survival.

It also meant making sacrifices that absolutely nobody, Shuji especially, could call justified.

A memory flashed in his mind. A huge city, its tall skyscrapers gleaming proudly in the warm spring sun. A round, snow-capped mountain dominating the cloudless blue sky… all gone now. All abandoned to the elements, left to wither and crumble. Thousands of years' worth of human history just decaying under the toxic rain.

"Nanotech enhancements? Grow up, Waldrop. It's been decades since cybernetics became viable and they still turn anyone who isn't a gravball star into a freak. Not to mention the reliability issues."

A smile crept into his face. Just when he had taken a break from the crunch to spare a few moments to think about the matters spiritual, these two muppets had to start another pseudo-scientific argument. At least it would be entertaining.

"The social stigma comes from the associations with the aliens, not through the faults with the devices themselves. God, Spratling, how can you be so short-sighted? Just imagine the implications-"

A laugh silenced him. "Short-sighted? Waldrop, have you ever seen a Bio-Drone? Go look that up, then call me short-sighted. And the only implication I can see is a massive budget hole. But assuming someone is stupid enough to give you the go-ahead and by some unbelievable miracle you succeed, what would it look like?"

"Let's see. Muscular augmentations, automatic dispensers for aerosol nanoparticles that would detonate all incoming explosive ordnance, monomolecular plates in the skin to protect against kinetic weaponry and subdermal polyaniline conductors to dissipate heat from energy weapons – just imagine how that would improve our agents' survival ratios! Hell, if that's too complicated for you, some bioluminescent cells in the retina can make your eyes into a flashlight. How is that not awesome?"

"Yes, making super-soldiers is fine and dandy on paper, but it always bites you in the ass in the end. And what you've just outlined would cost ludicrous amounts of money to implement on any sort of meaningful scale. We'd be able to afford one agent. Maybe two."

_Doesn't prevent us from trying_, Shuji disagreed in his mind. The injured captain in the medical bay immediately came to mind. A most curious case, one that he'd love to study in detail. If it weren't for universal (and admittedly justified) prejudice against this kind of human modification, he'd go as far as calling her a work of art - nearly flawless combination of natural traits, intensive training and artificial enhancement.

Who could do such a thing? Shuji had no doubt that X-COM had the resources and the minds necessary to pull this off, but why would they bother? Despite having his head stuck up his rear end so far that it would make attaining his degree in starship engineering physically impossible, William Spratling had a point there - making supersoldiers was wasteful. The Ethereals solved the problem to some degree by using clones, but this approach would be uncovered in a flash if X-COM tried it, with disastrous consequences.

Regardless, there were more pressing concerns to attend to. Shuji opened his eyes to stare at the… thing behind the thick armored glass.

His stomach stirred unpleasantly at the sight. A disgusting, glistening egg of the most repugnant shade of violet was not quite the ideal object for study after lunch. The glass was not just to keep the smell out, since the egg could spit corrosive acid at anything that came close from the funnel on top. Thankfully, said acid was not very potent – this fact having been discovered the easy way, with the consequences being limited to one lost research specimen, an ugly acid mark on Corporal Taylor's armor and a boot in desperate need of cleaning and decontamination.

Still, it held clues. Scans had already revealed a rapidly developing worm-like creature within.

A creature…

Shuji felt sweat form on his brow as his fingers slammed into the keyboard seemingly of their own accord. X-ray, tissue sample analysis, gestation period estimates – he had to understand what was developing inside that egg and, more importantly, he had to determine if it was a threat.

With a nasty cracking sound the egg erupted violently, covering the glass few inches away from his face in amniotic fluids and scraps of flesh.

Everyone present in the lab turned their heads to the isolated chamber as something stirred inside.

The head researcher just sighed and washed the filth away with a press of a button, revealing a worm.

At least, "worm" was the immediate association on everyone's minds upon seeing the alien. An impossibly large, green worm ending with a toothed maw.

The newborn's first act was to spit a large blob of familiar acidic ooze in Shuji's direction. The glass held. And the scientist knew that it wasn't "luckily". There was no such thing as luck to him.

"Aren't you a cute little critter," Shuji muttered as he entered another command on the console. Soon, the chamber filled with stun gas. Sighing, he turned away. "What are you all standing there for? I know the workday is over and all, but you two might as well make yourself useful. Glenn, go fetch the guard detail and bring a box, we'll haul this specimen to alien containment."

"I'm the head of engineering, Shuji, I thought I'm exempt from hauling duties," Spratling chuckled as he left the laboratory.

"You'll have another opportunity for your degree to pay off," Shuji laughed for the first time in days. "Right then, James… James?" he looked around, surprised to see that the biochemist had already vanished. "Well, of course, as soon as I need to get him to do something…"

"They've breached the ship!" a yell came from the adjacent room, instantly derailing Shuji's line of thought.

* * *

**Saturday, 11th March – 00:27**

**UFO Crash Four, Civic Project**

"I suppose that's one way of doing it…" Achuleta commented on the hole blown through the UFO's airlock.

"Honestly, I'm kind of surprised," Gaston said as he slung the missile launcher back onto his back. "You'd think a space-worthy vessel would be harder to damage with infantry weapons."

"_We're just as surprised in here, Private Gautier,"_ Commander Buchard noted. _"This ship took a few dozen Janitor missiles and still remained operational. Perhaps the damage added up during its landing. For future reference, remember that explosive munitions are a poor way to recover valuable research material. Proceed with your mission."_

"Affirmative, HQ. I'll take point."

Among other things, Gaston hated using night vision. Although extremely advanced for a piece of glorified riot police armor, Megapol helmet incorporated only an old-fashioned passive image intensifier for this purpose.

And since Gaston couldn't make sense of the black and green image even to save his own life, he had to rely on the tactical flashlight he had the foresight to attach to his rifle last night.

"Gaston, really?" Sata questioned his decision. "It's like you're asking for them to find us!"

"It's not like it's completely dark in here," he said sheepishly, pointing at weird, organic-looking fixtures in the walls that provided annoyingly insufficient illumination. "Man, this place is creepy," another quip escaped him as he carefully stepped inside through the hole he made.

"It's like we're inside a giant animal or something," Achuleta agreed as he squeezed his bulk into the downed ship next. "Feels cramped for a dropship though…"

"I hope the troop compartment got destroyed in the crash, I don't really feel like taking on everything it can carry."

"Don't be such a pessimist, you're in command, Gaston," Sata chuckled as she entered last. "Oh… oh damn…"

"Huh?" Both agents turned around to face her "You alright?"

"Yeah," she nodded quickly before lifting up her rifle. "I sensed them. I thought it was just anxiety last time but… no. They're near."

"Okay. Just make sure you don't freak out or somethi-_shit_!" Achuleta barely had the time to dodge out of the way as Sata suddenly aimed at him and fired her rifle.

…or rather, aimed past him, as the scorched remains of a Brainsucker that landed at her feet clearly demonstrated.

"There's more coming. Get ready," she said, her normal self buried under a calm, emotionless voice.

"Fuck me, there's no cover here," Gaston cursed as he dropped down to one knee and shined his flashlight into the corridor. Thankfully, it wasn't too long and the opposite airlock, crushed during the UFO's landing, came into view.

Before he could relax, two Anthropods just floated from down from the ceiling some distance away. One quickly ducked to the side and opened fire with his disruptor gun.

The other floated back up at twice the speed, hiding somewhere above the ceiling, but not before sending a pod with Sata's favorite critter their way.

This time it did not hit anyone, allowing Achuleta to stomp on it as soon as it opened, with predictable results.

"Shit, man, I just polished that armor," the trooper managed to let out a disappointed sigh before being reminded of the situation at hand with a disruptor bolt that impacted his chest plate.

"Fuck!" Gaston heard a body drop down next to him as he finally put a burst into the alien's head.

The Anthropod howled in pain as it dropped its weapon and tried to reach for its wounds, only to collapse moments later. The entire fight took mere moments, but to Gaston it seemed like an eternity.

"I'm still alive," Achuleta suddenly spoke up, still staring into the ceiling. "I think."

"It didn't penetrate your armor," Sata said as she looked at him before giving him a powerful kick to the shoulder "Now get the fuck up, we got a fight to win!"

While normally it would be considered an unacceptably rude way of making someone come to their senses, the gravity of the situation made it completely warranted. Achuleta got up as quickly as he could, the autocannon weighing him down significantly. He shuddered as he saw a small, perfectly round crater on his armor that exposed a tiny bit of the uniform underneath.

Gaston slowly approached the dying Anthropod, keeping the rifle trained at the alien at all times. The monster still kept trying to grab its weapon, but its movements grew weaker with every moment.

Sensing the agent's approach, it rolled over onto its back, this time pulling something out of a fleshy sac on its trunk-like leg. Gaston's eyes widened as he saw the clawed hand manipulate the boomeroid with surprising ease.

However, one of the rookie's main strengths was his short reaction time. While his subconscious was berating him for doing something so utterly stupid, his left hand moved of its own accord to yank the explosive out of the alien's grip and fling it into the opening above.

The rest of his mind caught up with what he had just done just in time to make him to dive and roll away from the alien and the blast wave of the boomeroid.

"That was awesome."

"And stupid."

"Stupid awesome?"

"Enough," Gaston chuckled as he got up. Another thud behind him made him spin around to see that the other Anthropod caught the grenade with its face. Or whatever it was that passed for a face. "Looks like there's a sort of a grav lift here. HQ, do you read?"

Silence was his only answer.

"There's some kind of interference. The hull must be too thick to let the signal through," Sata commented.

Gaston shook his head. "That's not how hyperwave comms work, Sata. Something else is the problem, but we can take care of it when we're done. Let's go."

Taking care not to slip in the pool of alien blood, Gaston looked up at the opening again. "Hope it works just like a regular grav lift. Anyone wants to try?"

His squadmates just staring at him for a few seconds made Gaston realize that the offer was not appreciated. "Fine, fine. Alright, here I go!"

He leaped into the air and sure enough, the familiar feeling of weightlessness immediately manifested itself. To his surprise, he slowed down without hitting the ceiling on the upper level, revealing yet another two-way corridor with larger openings at both sides.

And a Spitter, which was so uncomfortably close that Gaston, forgetting Corporal Homburger's advice, emptied the remains of his magazine into it at full auto with a decidedly unmanly-sounding exclamation.

"Gaston?" Sata's voice appeared below him as she and Achuleta ascended in the same way.

"Yeah?" He breathed out as the poor alien collapsed into a pile of a perforated gore.

"Did you just scream like a little girl?"

"Nope."

"I could've sworn you did." The hint of the usual playfulness crept into her voice.

"Shut up."

"You guys hear that?" Achuleta chose to draw their attention in the most unnerving way possible.

"Sounds like… steam?" Sata looked puzzled.

"It's that clattering noise, another Brainsucker!" Gaston muttered as he aimed in the direction of the sound.

It wasn't a Brainsucker, but it looked just as weird – about the same size, bipedal, light blue in color, emitting smoke from its back and very, very fast.

In a true "shoot first, ask questions later" fashion Achuleta opened fire in its general direction, preventing Gaston from getting a closer look.

The result was an explosion that knocked all three off their feet.

"You know," Sata said, annoyed, "there are only so many explosions I can take in a single day."

"Just be thankful we have this armor," Achuleta answered, sounding shaken. "Otherwise our first would be our last."

"Suicide bomber aliens, great, what's next? A fifty-foot tall monster?" By this time, Gaston was tired enough to let the fear of the unknown be replaced by anger.

"Focus," Sata reminded him, "angry rants can wait till we're safe."

Forming into a line again, the agents carefully peeked out one end of the corridor.

"Well, this looks somewhat familiar," Gaston whispered. While still made of the strange organic material, the place had the unmistakable appearance of a ship's bridge, with what was probably control consoles paired with relatively alien-looking chairs on the raised platforms adjacent to the outer wall.

To everyone's confusion, the lights went even dimmer, making Gaston's flashlight stand out in the darkness even more.

Swearing quietly, he turned it off and switched to night vision, squinting as he tried to make sense of his surroundings.

The aliens weren't about to let him have this courtesy, as two disruptor bolts grazed his arm, vaporizing most of the armor plating.

Confused, he stumbled away from cover as Sata and Ernesto tried to cover him. The environment suddenly lit up, making Gaston switch the night vision off just as quickly as he realized that Achuleta switched to incendiary ammo.

The move was quite clever on his part, made evident in a pair of flaming Anthropods emerging from concealment the ship's equipment afforded, howling and flailing until Sata and Gaston put them out of their misery.

Gaston looked at his left arm. Just like with Achuleta, the bolt even exposed his uniform but did not harm him in the slightest.

They were certainly lucky to make it this far without suffering any injuries.

Sata turned to Gaston "I think we got most of them. I can sense a few still but- behind you!"

The same arm he was staring at suddenly flew out in an arc to backhand the Spitter that chose the wrong moment to emerge from behind the corner of the superstructure surrounding the grav ligt. The unfortunate creature landed on its back, the blob of ooze from its funnel head missing its target by a mile.

"Wait," Gaston handed his rifle to Sata as he reached for the stun grapple, "the eggheads need this one alive."

The alien did not even manage to get back up before getting electrocuted into unconsciousness.

"I guess that's our last alien taken care off," Gaston exhaled as he took his weapon back. "We better double-check and head outside to report to the Commander, see if killing those Anthropods took care of the disruptor beam."

Sata shook her head. "There is still something in here."

Gaston looked around in confusion before spotting something in the distance and heading towards it. "That egg maybe? It's not sentient though, I don't see how-aaargh!"

Unbelievably sharp pain shot through his leg like a thousand rusty nails fired from a railgun. Shocked and disoriented, he tripped and fell right next to the egg as he saw a thin, pale pink worm frantically burrowing into his leg with muffled hissing.

The worm was just as large as said leg and had razor-sharp teeth, making the experience inhumanly painful. Panicking, Gaston tried to shoot it off, but with his shaking hands he missed at point blank range.

"Gaston! Hold still, let me kill it!" Sata shouted, although at the same time she understood that getting Gaston to calm down and let the worm chew on his leg in peace was impossible. So she took the shot anyway.

It hit, but it grazed what remained of Gaston's leg as well, making the latter howl in agony again.

Panting, he turned his head away from the grisly sight only to see the egg next to him turn its funnel at him.

He gulped, as even in his state he did remember that he was in for a blob of acid to the face. The reality turned out to be much worse.

The egg burst.

Gaston made an effort to drag himself away from it, but he was too late. The disgusting, huge green worm-thing latched onto his head with its impossibly huge maw.

Feeling the helmet give way under the alien's jaw, Gaston put his rifle's barrel against it and pressed the trigger. The foul creature twitched at the slugs entering its body, but it did not relent even when the rifle ran out of ammo.

Horrified, Gaston tried to pry it off him with his hands to no avail. More than that, he was rewarded with acid from the creature's bullet wounds spilling onto his damaged left arm, eating through the uniform in seconds and making him grasp it with his other hand in shock. At this point, the worm's teeth damaged the electronics, making the HUD shut down and disorient the private even further.

The thing kept twitching during its attempts to bite his head off, likely marking Sata's frantic shots. Finally, it stilled and let go.

Gaston tried to push the corpse away as it burst _again_, with four pink worms – although smaller than the previous one – attacking him again.

The only defense he could put up as the tiny teeth started cutting into his flesh was more screaming, just as his mind gave up and plunged him into a welcome darkness.

* * *

**Zander AFB, Cydonia, Mars**

"Saying that this is bad is like saying that the first Alien War was a slight misunderstanding," Russell sighed as he paced in front of Steinbach's desk. "We are supposed to be halfway to Earth by now!"

"Exactly," the Supreme Commander groaned. "This would be funny if it weren't so retarded."

"So what you're trying to tell me is that they've basically grounded our ship?"

"Worse than that. Technically it's just another unexpected inspection of military hardware since NWC tries their damnedest to prevent us from making money on the side. Or from appropriating what we need."

Russell looked out of the window in exasperation, seemingly trying to will the government Airtrans out of existence with his mind. "What the fucking hell? We're an elite independent agency! The paper-pushers can't just waltz in and ground us until they're done counting every slug and missile! We got a war to win for God's sake!"

Steinbach chuckled sarcastically. "Welcome to Mars, Mark. NWC is so paranoid about its security that they won't give anyone any breathing room whatsoever. This is why Marsec moved its main base of operations to Hephaestus ten years ago."

"How come we've never done that?"

"We have, actually. We've never stored anything important here in an attempt to keep the organization decentralized. Hell, I got a bomb implanted into my cranium that can be detonated by unanimous consent of all section commanders."

The colonel flinched. "Thanks, you just gave me another reason to never accept promotions," he shuddered again as realization set in "So wait, if we've never had anything of value here then… oh… crap…"

With a sour expression on his face, Steinbach nodded. "Exactly. Now I have to explain the presence of an elite black ops team with a questionable service record, a stolen military spacecraft with Union Aerospace logo on it still not painted over, and its pilot, who shouldn't even exist. The timing couldn't possibly be any worse."

"Should I start gearing the team up for some aggressive persuasion?" Russell cracked his knuckles.

This seemingly innocent question made Steinbach jump from his chair. "No, no, hell no, last time was enough!"

"It was six years ago, get over-"

Steinbach interrupted him. "No, I won't "get over it", it was a nightmare to cover up back then and we're already neck deep in shit as it is! I'll sort it out myself. In the meanwhile you can help by answering every question the investigators might have for you with "that's classified". If all goes well they should leave us alone in a week or two."

Russell raised an eyebrow. "They aren't gonna give you trouble for stealing a ship or anything?"

Steinbach laughed. "I'm stuck in this rank for a reason. So yes, I can wriggle my way out of this mess. And if not – a lot of people in Mars Fleet owe me favors anyway, I might as well use them."

"Oh, in that case I guess everything is taken care- wait a second!" the colonel spun around, "What do you mean, "a week or two"?"

Steinbach rolled his eyes. "Explaining everything in detail would take hours, so have a short version: bureaucracy. Any more questions?"

"Nope. I guess I'll go round up the team and go for an "exercise" in the desert. The less we stick around, the better," Russell headed for the door, looking defeated.

"Good idea," Steinbach nodded. "The inanity of questions these guys ask might just make a professional killer lose his shit and start shooting everyone in sight. And that's even more paperwork."

After watching Russell leave, Steinbach sighed again and let his eyes wander to his datapad with an old message from X-COM's internal network still displayed on it. Having nothing better to do, he looked through it for the hundredth time in the past ten minutes.

* * *

From: XCOM:INT:node000C/JSteinbach

To: XCOM:INT:node021E/GSpratling

Subj: Re: D21-XSA/F305Y2 Retaliator

Date: 12/05/83

Glenn,

I do recognize how promising the project is, but once again, we can't afford it. The fact that our peacetime budget is pathetic aside, the Retaliator's current performance is at best 30% superior to that of a Hawk – which we can buy from Marsec for half the price. We just can't go ahead and spend billions on improving something we don't have any use for.

Regardless, the work you have done will be used in our subsequent projects. Since I'm reassigning your team for now, the Retaliator prototype is going into storage in our Geneva base on Earth. You're welcome to work on it in your free time. Before you ask – I'm not letting Jinx near it again. I don't care how good she is. Find another test pilot, preferably someone who isn't out of his mind this time.

P.S. Stop obsessing over that Annihilator design. The Retaliator is obviously ahead of its own time and you're already driving forward. We won't even have guns big enough to fit that thing if you build one.

* * *

_If we had launched the Retaliator into mass production, we wouldn't have to resort to stealing spacecraft from our own suppliers_, Steinbach thought. Sighing wearily under the burden of yet another decision that had backfired on him, he enabled the mirror function on the datapad. After a few tries he managed to stop resembling a Chryssalid every time he tried to smile and succeeded in adopting a believable, relatively friendly facial expression.

"I hate this job," he muttered under his breath as the door opened again to let the people he least wanted to see in.

* * *

**Saturday, 11th March – 00:52**

**UFO Crash Four, Civic Project**

On top of one of the more intact buildings, two figures were watching the UFO. In the darkness, they could be easily mistaken for X-COM agents, seeing as how they wore the same distinctively shaped armor.

"They've… made it. I can't… speak to anyone inside," one spoke up, stretching out words as if human language was something alien to it.

"An unfortunate setback," the other figure agreed, its voice sounding a lot more human. "But there's nothing we can do."

"I can call… others in the vicinity, we still have… reserves," the first one said. "One of their number is… damaged. We can… overwhelm the rest."

"No," the second one shook his head. "Their Phoenixes have probably already rearmed and are on their way back here. They'll bring reinforcements, too. We can't win this one. Call Platais, we need to get out of here before their main force arrives."

"This is unacceptable!" the first one expressed actual emotion for the first time.

"They still lost their Valkyrie and a few agents are out of commission for days, if not weeks. The ships can fly however much they want over the city now and X-COM can't do a damn thing to stop them. X-COM can have this one. Now let's go."

* * *

The scene was pretty much the same as he remembered it from before.

He was never much of a believer, and the steady, weak wheezes of air audibly escaping the damaged respirator convinced him this wasn't the afterlife.

With incredible effort, he managed to turn his head to the right. The remains of the larger worm were still there, along with the little ones lying all around him in a pool of blood. Looking down, Gaston realized that the blood was mostly his.

A sound caught his attention. Something was coming. He was alone, however.

Letters etched on the black metal came into view. _"6mm FAMAH 4500 mle. 2083"_ They would make little sense to many people, but he knew what it meant.

After a few attempts he managed to grab the rifle with his good hand and point it at where the exits from the grav lift were supposed to be. The weapon felt unbearably heavy, making tears form in his eyes from the strain needed to keep it aimed.

Finally, a shape emerged. It had to be an alien, his blurry vision (the acid damage to the visor did not help) could not make sure, but it had to be-

_Click._

Gaston let his arm drop back down, helpless, bracing for the inevitable end.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Gautier, what happened here?"

He was so happy to hear that Corporal Homburger's voice that he felt he could die.

The passage of time felt uneven, strange, muddled. He remembered more pain, but he was too exhausted to care.

The fog lifted from his mind just once, to reveal the oddly familiar face of a young woman hovering over him, her amber eyes expressing uncharacteristic concern.

_Such a beautiful face… _Gaston tried to reach out to touch it, but what strength he had left was enough to just raise his hand weakly.

The woman carefully forced it back down, whispering something to him as her eyes swelled with unwanted tears. Gaston tried to express some sort of protest, but before he could do that she seemingly vanished into thin air.

The war had just barely started. The battles ahead would be numerous, more often than not bloodier than this one. There would be many challenges, revelations and unexpected events.

But for now, it was time to sleep. And so, Gaston Gautier slept, and dreamed.

The opening act of the Fourth Alien War was over.

* * *

**2020: Shattered Peace**

Inspired and intimidated by the example set by their southern neighbor, most of the remaining unaffiliated African and Middle Eastern nations attempted to merge into the new Arabian Bloc in 2021. This union, with its center in Syria, wasn't taken seriously until a year after when it was significantly bolstered by the surprising admission of Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Sadly, the intent of these three regional powers to exploit the Bloc for their owns needs, as well as absence of NATO as a deterrent caused the Middle Eastern nations' long-standing enmity with Israel to flare up again. It is debatable as to who fired the first shot in the war of 2023, but the result was horrifying – a limited nuclear exchange that devastated Syria and Iran, caused lasting repercussions for the global climate and utterly wiped Israel off the face of the Earth.

This atrocity caused a split within the Bloc, and the African half of it seceded and formed a new union – the Egyptian Cartel. It was largely based on the framework established by Africa Corp, but it put somewhat more emphasis on the preservation of the cultural identity of its member states. The Cartel is generally remembered as a controversial organization due to its unethical business practices, but one of its first acts was that of goodwill – it took in Israeli refugees as well as what little remained of the IDF, allowing them to settle in their own autonomous enclave in the former Libya. The remains of the Arabian bloc avoided the fate of their ill-fated predecessors such as the UAR and stayed together as a loose, but stable federation of relatively independent countries. That is not to say that these countries did not change – nuclear devastation and subsequent internal unrest led to all of them becoming more secular societies, abandoning the concept of state religion several years after their Egyptian neighbors.

By this time, the merges started snowballing. The European Union dissolved in 2022, only to be reborn a short time later as the third megacorp – the aggressive Euro-Syndicate, which quickly (and sometimes violently) annexed most of the former EU member states and Switzerland. The Scandinavian countries, led by the oil-rich Norway, horrified at the sight of their close neighbors turning into a neo-fascist state, announced the creation of their own, neutral federation, named simply Scandinavia. For a time it seemed that the ES would attempt to annex it as well, but tensions flared up in another region – the resurgent Russian Federation was busy incorporating its bankrupt neighbors, quickly approaching its pre-1991 size, excluding only the Baltic States which remained firmly at the Syndicate's side.

The two blocs eventually clashed over the disintegrating Ukraine in 2024, splitting the country in two halves following an inconclusive three-month campaign. Both sides claimed victory, but the truth was that they both lost – ES had its inexperienced military significantly depleted and would be in no position to threaten, let alone annex Scandinavia, while Russia lost a good portion of its top-of-the-line forces intended to be a deterrent against an all-too-possible Chinese invasion.

However, the war gave the Russian government an excuse to perform a major crackdown on internal dissenters, separatists and fifth-columnists. One of the greatest fears of Russian leadership had always been the disintegration of the federation – and this fear held it together. Quite unfortunately, it also became a catalyst for its transformation into a monster from the past – authoritarian, Russia-dominated Eurasian Hegemony.

* * *

Yeah, years to write what essentially amounts to Act I. I'd make a terrible writer with this sort of schedule. From now on I'll try to write slightly shorter chapters, it'll be easier to update that way.


	10. Respite

**Interlude: Fratricide**

**April 12th, 2024 – 22:13**

**US Route 67, North-east of Searcy, Arkansas, USA**

"Got a light, Lieutenant?" the accented voice behind him asked.

Armand almost jumped at the sound. Almost. This wasn't his first day in the field, after all. Sighing, he reached for the lighter in his vest's front pocket. "How long have you been standing there, Stan?"

The old man shrugged as he took the lighter and lit the cigarette in his mouth, closely covering the flame with his other hand as if he were about to crush it in his fist. "Longer than you think, Lieutenant," he finally answered as he inhaled the smoke. Only then he finally let his other hand drop.

"Why do you keep doing that? There's no wind around," Armand said, puzzled.

The man gave him a strange look. "Didn't I tell you all about th- oh right, you don't smoke anymore. Well, take a note anyway – cig lights are a sniper's best friend. Learned this the hard way in Grozny," the last sentence came out quieter than the other ones, while the correct pronunciation of the city's name gave out where did the accent come from.

Ouch. Armand and the rest of his platoon bonded with the peculiar "advisor" fairly quickly. Enough to get on the first name basis with him, and also to learn that asking about his source of expertise wasn't really polite.

Of course, Second Lieutenant Armand Buchard would not give a wooden nickel about politeness if it concerned the lives of his platoon. Little tricks such as the ones taught by a guy that was old enough to be their grandfather were probably worth more than the ammunition, weapons and oil said guy's country was supplying. Well, maybe not the oil. That was just as valuable. Armand still remembered the winter two years ago, before the foreign aid started arriving. Whole cities were on the verge of starvation and freezing. For the military the situation wasn't any better – they were stuck on the western border of the federal government territory, without fuel, ammunition, serviceable weaponry, air or armor support, satellite access, or even basic necessities like hot water and medical aid. If that wasn't living hell, then nothing was.

The conversation got interrupted by the sound of gunfire in the distance. Both men listened warily to the rattle of small arms, interspersed by the sharp cracks of ionized air characteristic of the X-COM laser weapons.

_Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom._

The firefight came to an abrupt end as the four Marine Abrams tanks parked on the highway sent a single high-explosive shell each into a two-story house on the outskirts of the town. The flimsily-constructed building instantly crumbled, burying the hapless shooters within.

Armand looked at the tanks with gratitude. The country's breakdown meant nothing but bad news for the US Armed Forces stockpile of armored fighting vehicles, and the Lima Army Tank Plant had been closed for years, ensuring that the amount of the surviving tanks would quickly dwindle due to the lack of spare parts. The Army was planning to get it running again after retaking Ohio, but it was a slow process. Still, they were trying _very_ hard when faced with the alternative – asking the Russians for some, which would be equal parts insulting and humiliating. In the average Joe's mindset the Russian tanks were nothing more than cramped deathtraps.

"They're probably gonna try breaking out of the town," Armand commented, "What do you think about all this, Stan?"

"Not your problem, Lieutenant. 5th Marine regiment will handle both them and whoever tries to flee to the west," the man said dismissively.

"What about us? It's not that I don't appreciate the breather, but shouldn't we help the jarheads out?" Armand asked.

Stan turned away to take another long drag on his cigarette before answering, "Your job here is done. Just sit tight, rest while you can and wait for the fireworks. 157th and 174th Infantry knocked the MSF off I-40 but they'll need your help if you all want to take Little Rock."

Armand shuddered, "Off the record, do you really think this is necessary? It just doesn't seem right, to bomb a town into rubble like this. There's got to be civilians in there."

Colonel Stanislav Konstantinovich Milovanov, an old, grizzled veteran of three wars and decades of insurgency in the Eurasian Hegemony sighed, "Do you know the story of this place?" Noticing Armand shake his head even in the near-total darkness, he continued, "It's not exactly common knowledge, but it was the site of a first Chryssalid attack twenty years ago."

The young lieutenant shuddered. Old leaked X-COM videos of Chryssalids in action were still circulated around in the Internet. Rare were the people who managed to last through one and then sleep well at night.

"As far as I know, nobody settled here after that. Everyone holed up in it is either an MSF soldier or a supporter of theirs. When I was- I mean, I heard people swear the town is haunted," he paused us he looked up to see the moon pierce the cloud cover. "Ch'yort. Come on, let's get down from the road, we're sitting ducks up here with this moonlight."

The two men swiftly worked their way down from the empty highway. Armand felt a tinge of pride – 82nd Airborne was battered by the civil war to the point where it had meager three battalions left, barely enough to form a single combat brigade. Normally the division would be considered wiped out, but the fame attached to its name would mean an unacceptable blow to morale if it were to be disbanded. But even if it remained "Airborne" (the US Army had almost forgotten the concept of "air support" during the past two years) and "Division" in name only, the 82nd still fought on, securing the US Route 67 bridge over the Little Red River mere minutes before the Midwest Secessionist demolition teams could destroy it.

And the secure bridge meant that the Marines from 1st MEF, closely following the 82nd, would be given a clear path straight to Little Rock, the capital city of Arkansas. The only problem was a small, but well-fortified ghost town of Searcy, which was close enough to block all traffic on the highway.

Even when safe from the sniper threat, both real and imaginary, Stan never inhaled the smoke without covering the cigarette first.

Armand gave him another look. He couldn't place his finger on why exactly, but the old man just did not look right in a US Army uniform. Then again, Armand shrugged in his mind, neither did his men in the Eurasian-made ballistic vests and helmets. Still, his thoughts drifted to where they had ended their conversation, "Shit, I didn't know all that… but what I'm saying is, I don't even care if they're insurgents, it's just wrong to wipe them off the face of the Earth like that."

The colonel slowly sat down on the young spring grass, groaning as he stretched his legs out, "And what's the alternative, Armand? Clearing that town house-by-house, and losing God knows how many men doing that? To your credit, you're trained and equipped a lot better than we were in '95 and '99, and you have Apthorpe in charge instead of drunks, charlatans and incompetents. But still, it's a simple choice between your casualties and theirs. I'd choose theirs. Every single time."

"They're still our countrymen," Armand objected quietly.

"Countrymen? Hah!" Stan spat on the ground, "What a joke… The _Nohchi_ were our countrymen too, you know. We lived in a single country for sixty- no, hundreds of years and then it all went to shit in a span of five. Not just them. From the Tajiks to those Baltic sellouts, everyone was suddenly at each other's throats. This is the same thing here. Yesterday they were your countrymen, but now they'll nail your wounded to window frames and use them as human shields for snipers. They must burn like the traitors they are and good riddance."

"_Bulldog Actual, this is Rook 13, we're approaching the target area, ETA 5 minutes. Pop flares to designate friendlies," _a voice appeared from the radio in the colonel's vest, interrupting the conversation before it could become really unpleasant.

The response came immediately, _"Copy that, Rook 13. Popping flares in three-mike."_

Exchanging quick looks, the two men climbed back up onto the highway, lying down with a clear line of sight to the defiant little town.

"So that's how it ends," Armand mused out loud, "Russian jets level American towns with fuel-air bombs. Five years ago this would sound too outlandish even for a movie. Even for a shitty 80's movie remake."

"_Citadel command to all Rook units. We have confirmation from AWACS that the Falcons from Little Rock AFB are taking off. You must get back under our SAM cover ASAP."_

"Russian jets wearing USMC livery and with American pilots inside," Stan replied, "Irony works both ways, comrade Second Lieutenant."

Before any of them could comment on that, a high-pitched howl of multiple jet engines appeared from the east. As if in response to that, green flares started lighting up all around the besieged town, designating the loyalist Army and Marine units locked in a stalemate with the separatists fortified inside. Thankfully, not one of the flares was even remotely close to the town proper – ODAB-500PM fuel-air bomb was anything but a precision weapon.

"_Affirmative, Citadel. Rook 13 to all Rook units, remember, one pass and haul ass. If I see any of you going for seconds, I'll make sure you never touch a plane again, assuming the MSF doesn't do it first."_

Armand snorted. After the two-year break the loyalists finally received some new planes and the fuel to put them in the air with. Bringing the extremely happy and overeager pilots back to Earth quickly became a problem.

"Cover your ears," the colonel reminded Armand before doing just that.

"_Rook 13 commencing bombing run. Duck and cover down there, boys, these things hit like a ton of bricks."_

Pressing his thumbs inside his ears, Armand remembered. He remembered the burning Fort Bragg, the 82nd's base getting bombed by their own former comrades from the National Guard and the Air Force for having the audacity to swear fealty to the new federal government. He remembered the despair he felt as the United States of America he knew and loved was reduced to a handful of impoverished states under martial law. He remembered the frozen, nearly lifeless New York, the civilians huddled in the few buildings that still could be heated, tens of thousands dying just because the rest of the country suddenly decided to go along with "every man for himself". And for what? No matter how much the separatists tried to justify their actions, it was clear as day that the most powerful country in the world fell due to a couple greedy bastards each wanting more power all to themselves.

_"Oddballs away!"_

He remembered it all as the four Frogfoot ground-attack planes screamed past him and over the town, leaving a visible trail of poorly burnt kerosene so characteristic of Soviet engines. And a hint, just a hint of a cruel smirk crept onto his face as the jets made a sharp turn to the north, accelerating the instant they released their payload. The whine of the engines grew louder, the pilots squeezing out every last ounce of power to get out of range of the blast wave in time.

Empathizing with other people was hard in this new age of warfare, but the effect of the airstrike was beyond what he had ever seen. Normally "Oddballs", as the USMC pilots had called these bombs with disturbing affection, were deployed using a single plane, making every separatist force in a fifty mile radius scatter as soon as the plane was spotted in the air. A squadron of four Frogfoots generally meant more conventional armaments – rocket pods, cluster bombs, air-to-ground missiles. It was nothing to laugh about either, but it could be survived using appropriate cover.

This time was different. There was no single target to be eliminated with a precision strike, no concern for civilian casualties, no fallout from the media to be taken into account. The ghost town of Searcy was just going to be made an example of – for the second time in two decades.

The furious roar of the ensuing blast drowned out even the sound of the jet engines. The fire brightly illuminated the surrounding countryside, making it shine as bright as day before a thick veil of smoke shielded Armand's unadjusted eyes. The inferno consumed the town in mere seconds, terrifying forces shredding buildings like wet tissue paper, throwing trees and abandoned cars around with ease and vaporizing any unfortunate souls to be caught within.

"God have mercy on us all…" he said as he let his head drop into the cool grass.

"None of this would be happening if there was one... Commander?" Stan's voice suddenly sounded a lot more younger and feminine, prompting Armand to raise his head from the grass in surprise.

Yet he saw nothing.

* * *

**Chapter 10: Respite**

**Monday, 13th March – 00:10**

**X-COM Base One**

The flames died out, like a raging bonfire that had abruptly run out of fuel to consume. Darkness settled upon his mind for just for a moment, since nobody was about to let him sleep.

"Commander? Are you there? Commander?" Andrea's voice quickly brought Buchard some sixty years back into the future, back to the quiet of the command center.

He blinked a few times, trying to focus his vision and chase the annoying memories away. "Yes. Sorry. Must've dozed off. Something happened?"

Andrea gave a hint of a smile before pointing to the datapad on Buchard's lap. "All quiet for the past four hours. But the government's weekly evaluation just came in," she said before lowering her voice, "Don't snore so loudly next time."

The monitors weren't much brighter than the rest of the command center now that the city they depicted had gone to sleep. The lights were dim, the streets were quiet, and only the feed from the few functional cameras in the downtown district stood out like a sore thumb, the neon signs making Buchard's eyes sting. He quickly turned his gaze to the datapad.

"Pleased with your performance and adjusted the funding accordingly", finally some good news for a change," Commander Buchard grumbled as he read through the message. "I dare them not to be pleased considering what we're forced to work with here…"

"You're being awfully negative lately, sir," Scruggs commented quietly from his workplace. Judging by his tone, he was bored out of his mind.

The commander shrugged sarcastically, "Damn right I am. Our only capable interceptor is wrecked, two agents got nearly blasted to shreds with while another one got nearly eaten by those… what did biochem name them?"

"Hyperworms, sir," Andrea helped him remember as she leaned on the commander's chair. She had recovered pretty fast, but still could not stay upright for prolonged periods of time.

"Yeah. Those things. So now we can only sit here and shout obscenities at the passing UFOs. In about thirty-six different languages, if I remember the personnel list right. Not even during the First War were we in shit so deep, at least back then the CFO took us seriou-"

"CFN, sir," Andrea interrupted him, "It was renamed to Council of Funding Organizations only in 2040."

Buchard gave her a scolding glare. "Whatever. What I was saying is that our sponsors took us seriously, and did not leave us to handle an alien invasion with _hovercars_. Painted _bright red_. This is the part where I'm supposed to say that I'm too old for this shit, but then the Sanctuary Clinic will sue me for slander against their rejuvenation treatments. When is the announcement going on air?"

"Sensovision will insert it into the daily news block at noon, Commander. Permission to speak freely?" Scruggs asked.

"Go ahead, Specialist."

"That "don't get hurt" poster looks plain stupid. Does its author even have any idea of what our agents look like in the field?""

Buchard took a few seconds to process the outburst before chuckling, "We're short on good artists here, Scruggs. This is just something Yamanaka from quantum physics threw together on a moment's notice yesterday. I think it's actually based on some old 20th century poster. Don't mind it too much, we got bigger things to worry about."

"Yes sir," Scruggs nodded. "I'm sorry, that was random."

"No problem. Now, what else do we need to check on?" Buchard looked at Andrea. "Oh yes. How's the progress at the crash site?"

"They've just finished disassembling and shipping. Krause's squad is setting up the charges to destroy the rest. Still no sign of any alien activity."

"And the Valkyrie?"

Andrea hesitated for a bit, "It's… salvageable, but Engineer Spratling said it will require a considerable amount of time to repair."

Buchard dismissed the concern, "He can take his time. We'll need to lay low," he said as he noticed Andrea's bewilderment at his words, "No other choice here. Our agents are exhausted after this week, our fleet is useless, and the reinforcements from Mars are delayed. I have all the reasons to believe that this is due to someone poking their nose into our business uninvited."

"And who would that be?" Andrea asked.

"Hell if I know. It might be anyone from the moral crusaders in the NWC Parliament to Solmine trying to pin the stolen Elerium on us again. What matters is that whoever they are, they should not expect to mess with us and not receive a kick on the ass afterwards," the man made a pause as a yawn interrupted his tirade, "But that's a problem for some other day."

Andrea shook her head. "We can't let anything be put on the backburner now, sir. If there's a threat, we need to allocate resources to containing it and-" her eyes widened as she suddenly fell to her knees, "What- why?"

The commander sighed as he helped her stand up. Careful not to let himself be heard by Scruggs, he quietly berated her, "I told you it was too early for you to get up. Even if you can't feel it, your wounds haven't healed yet."

The young woman scoffed – a first expression of emotion in days, "I can't afford to be lying around in the med bay now of all times, I got a base to run!"

Buchard chuckled, "It's midnight. Your shift is over anyway. Come now, I'll help you get to your room. Scruggs, inform me if anything out of the ordinary happens."

"Yes sir!" the operator was polite enough to coincidentally look the other way.

"I can make it there myself, I'm not helpless," she protested as Buchard led her out of the command center.

"Sure you can," he grumbled as he steered her towards the officer living quarters, "I'm just going to make certain that you actually go there and not on some business that can wait till morning."

She gently wrenched herself out of his grip, "Alright, alright, I'll go."

The Commander watched her every step of the way as she disappeared into her room. Grumbling, he turned towards the door to his own quarters. Truly, there were no more urgent matters that couldn't wait till after a good night's sleep, he thought as he closed his eyes just for a moment… and the image of the flames immediately came back.

"It was _not_ my fucking fault!" he spat through clenched teeth to nobody in particular as the door opened, letting him inside. After a moment's consideration he just collapsed onto his bunk, not even bothering with undressing. From his point of view, sleep was a waste of time by itself. Being haunted by memories of his own mistakes would only make it worse.

_The past is over, dead, and buried_, he thought, not for the first time in years. And not for the first time he knew he was wrong. Always wrong.

* * *

**Monday, 13th March – 11:34**

**Medical Bay, X-COM Base One**

Owing to the events of the last few days, the medical bay was a little more crowded than usual. Most of the injuries were easily dealt with in a matter of hours, limiting the number of those remaining in Soup's care by Monday to three.

One was a slim, tall Latino-looking man barely out of his teens with shoulder-length black hair. Of all the patients, he was the furthest on the way to full recovery. Even so, he resembled a patchwork doll with freshly regenerated skin coming in sharp contrast with the remains of tattoos that had once covered most of his body.

The slightly shorter person sitting in the open intensive care chamber next to him also had black hair, but that was where the similarities ended – for starters, his haircut was a shorter, unruly mess. He was also very pale, a feature common of those who had spent most of their time in space. He did not look too bad either, the casts on his legs being the only reminders of a near-fatal crash a few days ago.

The same could not be said for the third and final patient. Auburn military buzz cut and overall bulk indicated that he was the only soldier out of the three. Still unconscious, he was sealed inside his chamber, medical equipment reaching deep into the disturbing, perfectly round wounds.

"…and like our flight instructor back at the Academy used to say, "A cadet's head is primarily used to keep a helmet in its regulations-mandated place," the pale man finished the joke, being in the middle of telling a story to his newfound ganger friend.

Both men shared a chuckle, before Rico spoke up. "Well, that's a side of X-COM I definitely haven't seen before. Honestly, I thought that for a shady government agency you guys would be at least a bit dour."

This time it was Ian's turn to laugh as he waved his hand in dismissal. "Don't get me wrong, we are the best of the best. Well, at least I am. But given the stresses of our line of work the higher-ups don't really see anything wrong with us having our fun every once in a while, as long as we keep doing our jobs right."

"No alcohol though, eh?" Rico asked with a smirk.

Ian nodded. "Yeah, no booze until shore leave. We're not missing much here anyway, all that's sold in this city is Nutrivend brand environmentally-friendly piss. You want a good drink, you go to Geneva, or Mars. And there's also a nice brewery on the Land of Nod, but that's in the ass end of nowhere on the Frontier. I think I've been there like… twice. Best beer I've ever had though."

Rico's cheerful demeanor gradually turned into fascination. "You get around a lot, don't you? What's it like out there…" he stuttered for a second, seeing the confusion on the pilot's face, "Out there, in space? I've never actually been off-world."

Ian took a few moments to gather his thoughts before speaking, "Imagine a desert. A really huge desert, like North Africa. And in that desert, there's fifteen thousand people scattered in small villages. And these people don't get along. At all."

Rico leaned a bit closer, "That bad, huh?"

Ian blinked, "Bad? I wouldn't say so. The Frontier is a mess, that's for sure, but it still represents progress. Land- well, space of untapped riches and wonders. The name was chosen for a reason."

"But it's dangerous, isn't it? Aliens and stuff?"

The pilot chuckled a bit at the young ganger's curiosity, "The Ethereals haven't showed up in almost a decade, ever since they got their last expeditionary fleet single-handedly trashed by CANS_ Cameron_. The real danger in there is human. If you were to make a two-dimensional map of the Frontier, the territory under firm NWC control consists of three systems in the lower right corner – Elysium, Hope and Ra. That's where the first colony ships arrived, and the conditions there are pretty much like on Mars. Beyond those three it's the proverbial Wild West. There are only two exceptions."

Rico made a guess, "Asgard and Al Dagor, right?"

"Right you are," Ian nodded, "Marsec's private haven is roughly in the center of that map, while Al Dagor enjoys permanent X-COM protection on the top right corner."

"Why Al Dagor of all systems though?" Rico asked.

"The only settled planet in the system, Astron, is a priceless treasure we must keep under contol at all costs. It's the only one we've found where the atmosphere and gravity are practically indistinguishable from Earth's. You know what that means?"

To Ian's surprise, Rico readily answered, "Mainly it means that there's a lot saved on colonization. Even Mars is still relatively hostile to human life. But on Astron there is no need to spend money on terraforming, atmospheric regulators, gravity stabilizers, radiation shields and whatnot."

Ian raised an eyebrow, "You're a lot more knowledgeable than I thought. You weren't kidding about being from the slums earlier, right?"

"Nah," Rico said, "It's true. I really wanted to get out so I spent a lot of time on educating myself."

"That's admirable," Ian noted with approval, "I like people who strive to improve. What do you think you're gonna do once you're in?"

Rico looked away a bit, "I, uh, always wanted to be a lawyer," he stuttered again as Ian burst into laughter again, "What? What's so funny?"

Ian wiped the tears off his eyes, "Sorry, sorry, it's just... "lawyer" was the last thing I expected to come from you, no offense meant."

"Eh, none taken- wait, did you hear that?" Rico sharply turned to the sealed ICU to his right.

"Putain de merde, where the hell am I?" came the weak, yet extremely annoyed voice from the inside.

"_Inside the base's medical bay, Private Gautier. You are safe,"_ Soup's voice came from nowhere as the chamber's lid retracted, exposing Gaston Gautier to the world once more.

"Morning, Private Gautier," Ian addressed him with a chuckle, "Feels good to be alive, doesn't it?"

A groan indicated that the trooper was not in the mood for humorous banter. "Not really, but I do feel the urge to murder everyone around me if it counts."

"That's too bad. Will a sandwich fix that?" Ian said, pointing to the enormous food tray next to him, courtesy of the base's resident (and as it turned out, very compassionate) chef.

The glare Ian was given in return could probably burn through an inch-thick plasteel armor plate. "You're offering me a snack right after some… _things_ tried to eat me for dinner," Gaston muttered before focusing his eyesight on the tray, "Actually never mind, I'm starving. How long have I been out? Rico, you should know."

"Ever since they brought you in on Saturday night, so I guess that's..." Rico paused for a second to think, "Two days."

"It's Monday already? Oh man. Corporal Homburger is going to skin me alive for lying around like this."

However, the imminent threat of flaying by superior officer did not dissuade Gaston from descending upon the breakfast with vigor that could not reasonably be expected from someone who had just spent three days being a living vegetable. Rico and Ian were left to watch in silent amazement as Gaston devoured three times the amount of food they had both eaten today in mere minutes.

"Ah," Gaston breathed out in relief as he finally relented, "That's much better. So who might you be?" he asked Ian.

"Sergeant Ian McNeil, assigned to Charred Heap of Scrap Metal One. No, don't do that," he quickly added, seeing Gaston's horror at the realization that he had just shown disrespect to a superior officer, "I don't give a shit about ranks, especially my own. Just Ian. Okay?"

Gaston smiled, relieved, "Yeah, okay, Ian. So… I guess you guys have a better idea of what happened after I got jumped by these critters?"

Ian rolled his shoulders, "I wasn't much better off than you, but last I heard, they secured the UFO. No more surprises after that."

"Yeah, about that," Gaston shuddered, "I didn't actually think you survived the crash. Not having ejected and all."

Ian frowned, "Ejecting would have been suicidal. Valkyries and Hawks take quite a bit of time to purge the armor plating around the cockpit pod. I wasn't quite sure the aliens wouldn't just shoot me as I ejected either. Especially since I've seen it happen before."

"Uh, guys," Rico interrupted them and pointed to the large screen on the wall, "The news are coming up."

"_From the Sensovision Corporation, this is The World's Afternoon News on MPBC. Good afternoon, Mega-Primus, this is…" _

"That's nice," Ian turned to the screen, "I like discovering new things to complain about."

Rico snorted, "Like you'll find any on MPBC. All they ever do is trumpet about the glorious triumphs of the hard-working folk of Mega-Primus, yadda yadda."

"Reading between the lines, my friend, that's what you do when facing blatantly pro-government media," Ian answered with a chuckle.

"_Final evaluation is being carried out on Megalopolis Number Two. Today the NWC Environmental Safety commission will issue its verdict on whether the newly-reconstructed city is once again safe for human habitat..."_

"I wonder what will they name it," Gaston commented on the sight of the Manhattan. Like with Toronto, the construction crews tried to restore or rebuild the most iconic landmarks, and the images of Chrysler and Empire State Buildings (reconstructed thanks to the aid of General Metro corporation, and they would _never_ shut up about it) flashed prominently in the segment.

"They'll probably keep calling it New York. Mega-Primus is the only one with a unique name because it was the first of its kind," Rico said.

"_Despite the rapid progress made, experts are still voicing doubts about the success of this venture, most concerns being about the significantly higher degree of atmospheric contamination compared to Mega-Primus, as well as the proximity to the toxic Atlantic Ocean..."_

"Bullshit," Ian waved his hand in dismissal, "Our atmospheric regulators can handle everything short of a hellhole like Venus. Earth is practically a cakewalk compared to colonizing other planets, which is why we're building these cities in the first place. And who are these "experts" anyway?"

"I always thought "experts" means "we have a stupid opinion that we want to look smarter than it actually is," Gaston stated with a completely serious face, eliciting a few chuckles.

"_A memorial service was held today at the New Quba Mosque in the city of Port Scott on Mars, commemorating the 30__th__ anniversary of the official end of the Eurasia—Arabian war of 2054. The so-called Last War on Earth started with a massive Eurasian air- and missile strike on the former Saudi Arabia and abruptly ended after Transtellar's announcement of the creation of the Mark I Conversion drive on New Year's Eve. An official ceasefire was signed only three months later in Budapest…"_

"Funny thing is, Transtellar probably saved the humankind. Arab Bloc was one itchy trigger-finger away from nuking the Ruskies in return for destroying three quarters of their oil production capability," Rico said, before noticing the weird looks from Gaston and Ian, "What? I've been paying attention during history classes!"

"_In the Frontier- we're sorry, but we interrupt our schedule to bring you this breaking news."_

"Oh shit," Gaston quipped.

"Here we go," Ian sighed.

"Huh?" Rico said in response to both of them.

"_Moments ago, X-COM Mega-Primus Detachment has declared the city to be under the state of "partial lockdown". According to the local X-COM Section Commander, whose identity is still kept secret, "due to the complications faced by X-COM in its investigation of the unknown alien race's activity in Mega-Primus, a limited set of travel restrictions and enhanced security measures will be set up in cooperation with the Senate and the local Megapol branch."_

"Martial law?" Rico asked.

"Sort of," Ian responded, "But saying exactly that would mean a panic."

"_X-COM has reassured us that the situation is kept under control, and that the aliens are not hostile unless explicitly provoked. Citizens are encouraged to report any suspected alien sightings via the hotline now shown on the screen. Additional information on the changes implemented can be accessed via the government webpage. Now, back to our scheduled programming…"_

Nobody listened to the rest of the news block, instead trying to process what they just heard.

"Oh man… oh man oh man oh man. Those reinforcements from Mars better get here before late," Ian muttered while staring into the ceiling, "Valkyrie down, no airpower left... at this rate we're screwed. Shit, I'll be happy with whatever and whoever they send here, we just need _something_ before this goddamn city goes up like the White House on the 4th of July."

"I hear you," Gaston said while looking even sourer, "We've got some reserves as far as I know, but a dozen agents in a million-large city – that isn't going to end well."

Rico, not being privy even to the general X-COM information, could only guess what his new friends meant. He could make up a lot of different versions and come to varying conclusions, but thing was certain – his troubles hadn't even begun yet.

* * *

**Tuesday, 14th March – 22:01**

**X-COM Base One**

Despite the safety concerns, high-ranking personnel on X-COM bases were given the luxury of their own quarters, and Carl Krause was infinitely grateful for that. He could use the privacy right now.

Rubbing his temples, he once again stared into the screen of his private terminal. He had spent two hours trying to compose one letter without any success. The screen's blue, cold glow remained indifferent to his suffering. Sighing, he tried again.

_Dear Mrs. Miller,_ he started_. It is with great sense of loss that I must regretfully inform you of your husband's death in the line of duty._

Krause awkwardly lifted his hands off the keyboard, as if disgusted by what he was writing. "Loss, regret," he spat under his breath, "There aren't any fucking words for this! Damn it, Sam, why did you have to go like that…"

In but a few moments, rage gave way to tear-inducing despair, "How am I going to live with all this?"

A piping, snide voice just kept whispering accusations in his mind. _Miller had a wife and a child. Crossett, the eldest sibling out of five was practically supporting his family on his own. Petersburg's widowed mother would just love to know that her only son was shot by his own commanding officer. This is all your fault. Your fault. YOUR FAULT._

"Damnit!" Krause punched the wall, before wiping the message and starting over again.

_You are unfit for duty_, the voice kept taunting him. _They were right all along. You preach to the corporals about how they aren't real soldiers. Are you one? Are you? No, you're not._

An image flashed through his mind like an old leaflet blown close by the wind. Hundreds of soldiers clad in urban camo, made into faceless, identical, soulless monsters by the combination of gas masks and night vision goggles. Gunfire. Bodies. Unacceptable casualties. Another failure. _YOUR FAILURE, _his raging subconscious immediately reminded him.

This was going to be a long night for him.

* * *

**Friday, 17th March – 11:34**

**Briefing Room, X-COM Base One**

"Morning. Let's skip all the "thank you for joining" crap and get straight to the point."

The briefing room on the X-COM base was being used for the first time in this base's admittedly short history. The hectic pace at which things got done during the first week left little time for lengthy discussions and briefings.

Things had settled down somewhat. The UFOs had been sighted only once, but all X-COM could do was to just watch them deposit their cargo in remote, industrial areas of the city. Krause and Taylor had made several search-and-destroy runs, but met little success.

"Our mission did not start in the best possible way, and I won't lie that we've taken more blows than we can handle. Nevertheless, we've got plans in place to replace our losses."

Commander Buchard was not one to keep a cool head under any circumstances, and it began to show.

"Half of you are here and not enjoying the city life above us due to another unexpected variable – the Cult of Sirius. According to our… sources at Megapol and our own little excursion to the Temple of the Visitors, the Cult is armed and ready to fight a street war. They have not found us. Yet. If we want them to stay away, we will have to attack them again at some point."

Some glances were exchanged in the audience. The opinion was split on that issue. Some believed that the Cult was given a clear enough message and that the focus should have been on the aliens. Others pursued a more militant stance.

One of the "arrivals" in the back row raised his hand. Noticing Buchard's attention, he asked "What of the information that Megapol has been infiltrated?"

"I was just about to get to that, Corporal Hasan. Here's what we've pieced together over this week."

Buchard pressed turned on the screen behind him with a press of a button on the remote. Gaston, who had up until this moment been quietly snoozing somewhere in the middle woke up as he immediately recognized the scene – the rooftop of the Aldous Huxley Emporium.

The commander himself took a look at the still frame with contempt before continuing, "One of Megapol's elite SWAT teams has been compromised. Earlier we suspected that they were working for the Cult, but as of now our chief science officer is convinced that they are under alien control. Which brings us to this," Buchard said as he switched to the next slide.

Gaston felt Sata grab onto his arm nervously.

"This is a Brainsucker. Through means yet unknown to our biochem division, they exercise a form of mind control on their victims. One such alien was the cause of the regrettable… loss of Private Petersburg."

Krause never explained what actually happened in Bakunin Block, but the pieces were easy to put together. The rest of the attendees tried really hard to avoid glancing at the sergeant, who, in turn, was doing his best impression of a stone statue.

"Evidence suggests that the entire team has at some point been attacked and successfully subverted by these creatures. There are sixteen renegade troopers. Two squads, four fireteams. Corporal Taylor here will provide additional information on Megapol."

With a quiet, barely noticeable grunt Oscar Taylor got up from his seat in the front row and took Buchard's place before the screen.

"Contrary to what some of you in here might think," he paused as Homburger, Krause and several others pretended to be very interested in the ceiling, "Megapol SWAT units are not a bunch of rent-a-cops with fancier gear. Technically "SWAT" is a misnomer if you apply it in the traditional sense."

Another switch of a button displayed a picture of a fully armed and armored SWAT team posing in front of a Suppressor troop transport.

Taylor continued sharing his expertise, "It's more than just a law enforcement unit. Their tactics are practically copied from the 3rd Chief Directorate of the Marsec Internal Affairs Agency."

"Rat squad creeps," Homburger grumbled under his breath, "I'll die a happy man if I never have to see one up close again."

Commander Buchard was getting increasingly impatient with the long explanation. "Cut to the chase, Corporal."

"What I mean," Taylor's voice adopted a shade of annoyance, "Is that these men are trained for high-risk operations, including but not limited to sabotage, survival in extreme conditions, assassination, hijacking, hostage-taking, kidnapping and guerilla warfare. Right now they are putting that training to use. They're setting up hideouts and safehouses all over the city in preparation for a lengthy campaign."

The audience did not seem to be too convinced by Taylor's argument. "And what makes you say that?" Krause asked, voicing everyone skepticism.

"The Boomeroids we ran into at the Civic Project were laid in a standard military pattern. I think it's too much of a stretch to assume that a completely alien intelligence would have an identical approach to the concept of a minefield. This only serves to reinforce my concern that not only these troopers are under alien control, they're actively using their skills and training too."

The audience became silent for the next few seconds, watching Taylor intently as he gathered his thoughts and continued. "We've secured the body of one of them, identified as Special Constable John Drinkward. Biochem is still studying it. Meanwhile, these are the unit commanders we should be on the lookout for," he paused to switch slides again to a few mugshots, "Sergeant Edmund Krakowski, Inspector Kevin Avery, Inspector Sidney Dodd and Senior Inspector Arnis Platais. Like their troops, they are to be considered extremely dangerous and must be eliminated on sight."

"Fantastic," Krause nearly spat, "Now we have some commandos in addition to the Cult and the aliens. How about some good news?"

"Just getting to that, Sergeant," Buchard took the stage again as Taylor returned to his seat. "First things first, the reinforcements from Mars ran into some unexpected trouble, but Commander Steinbach assured me that it has been sorted out and that they will depart any day now. Aside from an elite team with valuable experience, they'll also be bringing in some new hardware for our agents to use, which, in turn, will allow us to focus our resources elsewhere. Namely, I've been looking into the issue of issuing our pilots with some actual combat-worthy craft."

Gaston glanced to the side. Ian and his two subordinates, whose name he did not know, looked genuinely relieved.

"Thankfully, the Senate has _graciously,_" Buchard made a dramatic pause to let the sarcasm sink in, "provided us with funds large enough to order two additional Valkyrie interceptors. _Captain_ McNeil's own craft is also going to be repaired in a week."

The more jovial-looking of Ian's friends punched him in the shoulder, exclaiming "Bout damn time!"

Ian, however, did not share his optimism over getting promoted. "With all due respect, sir… that will cause you no end of trouble with the rest of the organization."

"To hell with them," the Commander shrugged, "This is my base, my command and I promote who I need. Whatcha gonna do about it?"

A few weak laughs were had in the room before Buchard returned to a more serious demeanor. "Now then. On to more good news, our Engineering division is working around the clock to adapt the captured alien disruptor weapons for our own use. The first batch will be issued to squad Bravo tomorrow. Lastly, two more squads have been activated and are on active duty as of now – Squad Echo under Corporal Hasan and Squad Foxtrot under Sergeant Patterson. Due to the large amount of reported alien sightings in the city we'll be forced to conduct our investigations in small units, one or two squads at a time. Since this entails a higher risk of casualties, I will stress this again – we cannot afford to take any more losses. Gentlemen, you are second to none in training, equipment, experience and especially _cost_," the Commander stressed the last word.

"Due to several changes in our modus operandi since AWII replacing losses has become even more prohibitively expensive. In the following months we will have to make best with what we have here, and we must _not_ squander it. Any questions? No? Good, meeting adjourned."

* * *

**Friday, 17th March – 14:50**

**Somewhere in Mega-Primus**

"Honestly, what's with you guys today? You all look down," Rico said as he made attempt at conversation. Being blindfolded and taken somewhere in a car wasn't really making him comfortable.

A tired groan came from Gaston, who was sitting next to him, "Let's just say that the boss wasn't happy during our morning meeting and leave it at that."

"Quiet, Gautier," the man in the driver's seat silenced him. "Alright, we're at the spot. You can take it off."

After Gaston removed the blindfold, Rico blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the light. "Where are we?"

"Practically the center of the city. It's up to you to decide what to do next. Here's your passport," he said as he gave Rico an electronic ID card, "Your standard immigration package should allow you to rent a room somewhere while you do… whatever you want to do. That's about it. Come on now. Go."

The former ganger-turned-citizen opened the door of the car and stepped outside. The passport and the clothes on his back were his only worldly possessions now. _Fitting for a fresh start_, he thought as he turned around to, "Uh… thanks, guys. Good luck with the war and stuff. See you around, I guess."

"See us around, huh," the corporal displayed the first sign of emotion since the start of the trip in form of a smirk, "For your own sake, I hope we never run into each other again."

"Bye, Rico. Take care now," Gaston hastily said his goodbyes as he closed the door.

Rico stood and watched for a few minutes as the Stormdog lifted off the concrete, made its way back into the traffic and vanished in it.

Sighing, he forced himself to look the other way as he started walking towards a brighter future and a better life.

* * *

**Sunday, 26th March – 06:30**

**Zander AFB, Cydonia, Mars**

The base was abuzz with activity now that the hated government Airtrans had finally left, personnel aimlessly running around, loading crates, unloading wrong crates, arguing with each over what crates were wrong and getting yelled at in turns by Russell and Steinbach for making a total mess of the simple order that consisted of "load all this stuff into the Hawk".

The Hawk was going to become a home for seven people for the next week, and a very cramped one at that, considering how the above-mentioned unmarked crates full of equipment meant for X-COM on Earth occupied most of the available space. Thankfully, there was still enough of it left to install a small habitation module and Russell's unit was used to less-than-stellar working conditions.

They weren't a perfect team by any means. Reckless, insubordinate, perhaps even crazy, but Steinbach still had no concerns about them. At the very least they solved a lot more headaches than they caused.

The Commander was concerned about a different matter entirely, one that had the potential to turn into a disaster.

Making his way past the chaos in the hangar, he came to a halt before the gigantic spacecraft, the Valkyrie's oversized and extremely ugly successor.

Hacksaw (_Captain Kovacs_, Steinbach corrected himself in his mind) saluted him as he climbed in. "What brings you here, Commander?"

"Gotta check up on her. I'm not sure she actually understands what she's going into," Steinbach answered after returning the salute,

Hacksaw's face darkened as he stepped away from the passage to the cockpit, "Frankly, sir, she creeps me the hell out."

"That's rich coming from you," Steinbach shrugged unconvincingly. He wasn't exactly happy about this arrangement either. Taking a deep breath, he entered the cockpit.

A voice instantly came from the pilot's seat, "Was zum Teufel wollen sie jetzt von mir?"

"It's me. And how many times did I tell you to speak English?"

"Warum denkst du, dass es mir nicht egal ist?" The owner of the voice did not even bother turning to face him.

"Because this is your first and only chance to prove that keeping you around wasn't a mistake. I don't need to tell you that most of my staff considers you a dangerous liability."

"I've heard that one before," the voice commented in a disinterested fashion.

Patiently, as if talking to a small child, Steinbach explained, "The impression you make on Buchard will be critical for our evaluation of your performance so far."

The speaker mocked him, "And what if I don't make the grade? Wirst du mich umbringen, oder was?"

"I hope it won't come to that," Steinbach cut her off before adding, "If you behave like a responsible person, everything will be fine. So please, just this once, try not being a pain in the ass."

Silence was the only answer he got. Shaking his head, he turned around to leave.

"Komm lebend zurück," he said quietly to himself as he stepped back through the access hatch.

"Thanks," came a sheepish answer from behind him. Steinbach smiled. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

Barely two hours later, the Hawk finally lifted off and disappeared into the yellowish Martian sky in a flash, on its way to bring hope and relief to the forces on Earth. Yet Commander Steinbach could not shake the feeling that it would end up as yet another futile offering to the ever more bloodthirsty Moloch of war.

* * *

**2023: Tigers and Dragons**

In South East Asia political changes were not as violent, although quality of life continued to plummet and smaller nations regularly collapsed and got absorbed by their neighbors. PRC and ROC were eventually peacefully reunited as Free China in 2023, and one year later their example was followed by the two Korean republics. The Korean unification was extremely difficult, and for most of the time Federated Korea existed as two states under a single government. The borders between the two parts were completely opened only in 2045.

Following the US civil war most of the US overseas troops were recalled home, leaving Japan without any foreign troop presence on its soil. Like all developed countries, it was suffering from a lack of natural resources and diplomacy could only get them so far. Eventually this resulted in major changes to its constitution that resurrected some of the imperialist ideals of pre-WWII Japan. The country could officially have an army and build offensive weapons once again. This was accompanied by radical cultural changes, mostly consisting of an upsurge of patriotism and calls for a return to more traditional values. The result was so different from what the world was used to that it was frequently called Neo-Japan, although officially it was still known as the Empire of Japan until its dissolution in 2064.

To the credit of the Japanese leadership, despite their notably aggressive foreign policy they still managed to avoid sparking military conflicts. Possibly the worst thing that happened in the region until AWII was just a series of naval skirmishes with Free Chinese and Australasian navies in the vicinity of Philippines over an oil field dispute, which ended in stalemate and prompted the sides to return to peaceful negotiations.

Like Canada, New Zealand and Australia were left without allies following the formation of ES and the temporary breakup of the US. Their solution was to create a bloc of their own, called (unimaginatively) Australasia in 2023. During the next few years they formed a military alliance with Indonesia and Malaysia, with most of the remaining Pacific and Indian Ocean island nations joining soon after. Militarily this bloc was vastly underpowered when compared to other powers in the region, but managed to hold its ground nonetheless due to its formidable navy, centered around two seized USN carriers that fled to the continent after the outbreak of the US civil war. One of them, the HMAS Glorious, is preserved in Perth even to this day.

The final multinational conglomerate to form in Asia was the aptly named Asian Coalition with its center in India, formed purely out of necessity as India's long-time nemesis, Pakistan, now had an entire Arabian Bloc backing it up, not to mention that Free China wasn't looking at its neighbors with entirely altruistic intentions either. The Coalition was founded in 2025, later than any other bloc in the area. Nominally it was potent enough to hold the other regional powers at bay, but it was plagued with domestic issues so severe that the aftermath of the T'leth disaster utterly destroyed it. This became the first in a wave of immense humanitarian catastrophes that eventually claimed nine billion human lives.

* * *

**A/N:** Exposition: The Chapter! Don't worry, in case you're craving for some action, I'm probably including some into the next chapter, which, knowing me, is probably coming out next year. Somehow I can't shake the feeling that I'll finish this story right when an actual Apocalypse remake comes out, which could be anywhere between "when pigs fly" and "sometime in the actual 2084".

Oh by the way, since I'm a terrible, evil, cruel man, I wrote a huge, detailed history segment on the US. And I'm saving it for last. Because I'm evil. And cruel. Did I mention evil?


End file.
